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Archive for the ‘Barenaked Ladies’ Category

John Brandon–Further Joy (2014)

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Canadian Music, Death, Football, Huh?, Humiliation, John Brandon, Marriage Trouble, Marry Me, McSweeney's, Mystery, Oddities, Pet Shop Boys, Short Story, South, Steven Page on October 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

joySOUNDTRACK: STEVEN PAGE-Page One (2010).

pageoneThis is the first proper solo album for Steven Page, former Barenaked Lady.  He did have a side projet while he was still a BNL guy, called The Vanity project, but this comes after he left the band.  As a lead songwriter for  BNL, this album sounds an awful lot like a BNL album.  But he does branch out a bit for better and worse, on a couple of songs.  I like that the record is designed sort of like a book.  And that there’s a library check out sleeve and that one of the names who checked out the “book” is Leland Palmer (ha).

“A New Shore” sounds like classic Barenaked Ladies, with a big chorus (and Page’s great voice), strings and even a whistling section.  If you imagine the harmony vocals are by Ed Robertson, this could easily fit on a BNL disc.  “Indecision” sounds like latter BNL with the “whoo hoos” and the way the verses really slow down the craziness of the chorus.  The big difference is the female backing vocals.  “Clifton Springs” opens with a ba da da section and a very catchy melody that sounds like a sitcom theme song (hey sitcoms, check this out!).  It’s a mellow song that really highlights Page’s voice.

“Entourage” is a kind of dance song.  It has a kind of Pet Shop Boys feel (or else I’ve been listening to the Pet Shop Boys too much).  It even has a line “I only love you when I’m drunk” which echoes Pet Shop Boys’ “You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk.”  But I love the way Page says “Alright” at the end of the chorus and it could possibly have been a dance hit.  It ends with a minute or so of a jazzy coda.  “Marry Me” could also be a theme (to the new show Marry Me, duh).  It’s energetic and poppy.

“All the Young Monogamists” has cello and violin and in some places, little else.  It’s quite a different sound for the album, like a minor orchestral piece.  It works mostly.  “She’s Trying to Save Me” is a great return to the bouncy single that BNL did so well.  “Over Joy” has a very sixties feel (the way Page’s voice is processed).  I believe it is also the same melody as the Barenaked Ladies song “Hannukah Blessings” which Page wrote.  And why not?  It’s very catchy.

“If You Love Me” has a very synthy 90s pop feel.  I can see it being on the far end of Page’s fun zone, but I don’t really like it.  When the song ramps up to the next notes around 2:50, it is excruciating.  On the other end of the spectrum is “Leave Her Alone” which opens like a big band number (and stays that way in the chorus) but has verses that are very electronic.

“Queen of America” is a big bouncy song, that I wish I liked more.  The final song, the five and a half-minute “The Chorus Girl” is a sad ballad (the kind that Page also writes very well).  The song seems to want to be an epic (with horns an extended coda), but I think it drags on a bit too long.

Anyone who misses Page in BNL will certainly like this album.  And those who are a little disappointed in the Page-less BNL newer records could easily mix half a dozen songs from this and some of the best songs from the newer BNL records into a very satisfying BNL+Page disc which would sound totally coherent.

[READ: April 25, 2014] Further Joy

This is Brandon’s first collection of short stories and I enjoyed them all quite a lot.  Brandon specialized in disaffected protagonists, settled and settling in the South.  And there is a nice amount of diversity in these stories.

The Favorite
In this story, Gardner returns to his home town after ten years of being away.  he was quite a success when he left, but his return is less than exciting.  He lives in small town that was big into high school football and he was glad to be away from it.  But now that he is back he goes to games with his mother. The locals are happy he’s back, they think it’s great that he returned to be with his mom and to look after her.   But he is miserable.

The only thing that makes the return palatable is seeing Ainsley.  They dated in high school but didn’t have a bad breakup when he left.  She is divorced now and single. She works in a doctor’s office and tells him stories about patients (despite it being against HIPPA–although she ever gives names).  Since he is short on cash, he uses some information that she gives him to bet on an upcoming football game (he was able to figure out one of the players from the injury she described). Now the question is, could he go through with the scheme.  He calls on a favor from another former friend who has never had much success.  It could all go horribly wrong, of course.  I really enjoyed this story a lot, and I loved the way the title played into the story unexpectedly.
(more…)

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Dave McKean–Celluloid: An Erotic Graphic Novel (2011)

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Dave McKean, Graphic Novel, Group of 7, Kevin Hearn, Photo Essays, Rheostatics, Sex, Short Books, The National, tagged on February 3, 2014| Leave a Comment »

celluloidSOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Group Of Seven Live, Ottawa, ON (October 21 1995).

vesely This concert, available from Rheostatics Live, is a recording of the band playing their Music Inspired by the Group of 7 live.  I’m not sure how many of these shows there were, or even if this is the show in its entirety (it seems like it, but there’s no intro, and maybe there was more after the set?).

At any rate, the Group of 7 album is almost entirely instrumental–scored music that is certainly rock, but quite different from typical Rheostatics fare.   In this live setting, we have piano,  upright (and bowed) bass and cello.  And yet it is distinctly Rheostatics.  Band friend (and Barenaked Lady) Kevin Hearn plays piano (he joins them on many of their live shows) as he helped them compose the original soundtrack.

The band doesn’t say much during the set.  In fact, they don’t talk at all until the half way point, when Bidini introduces everyone and talks about how they came to write this music.  He talks about crossing Canada and is generally a jovial fellow.  And then he talks about the reworking of “Northern Wish.”

The Group of 7 album is probably my least favorite Rheostatics album because it is basically a score (I do like it, and think it’s a great audialization of the Group of 7, but it’s not like their proper albums).  And there are some beautiful songs here.  One of the most interesting is “Boxcar Song,” which has a great riff.  It also includes the reworking of “Northern Wish.”

Incidentally the album’s tracks are just listed as one through twelve, but they have gained names from live shows.  And they don’t match up exactly with the album in this concert setting, as this makes it seem that the final song is the long waltz, which it isn’t.

Anyhow, this download isn’t a top ten.  Unless you really like the CD, in which case this is a must hear.  The show includes the samples from the album and a bunch of very interesting takes on the songs.

For a brief news story on the collaboration, check out this from CBC’s The National from 1996.

and part two

[READ: February 2, 2014] Celluloid

I actually assumed this was a new title, as it just came across my desk the other day, but I see that it is three years old.  I’ve always admired McKean’s work, which I think is grotesquely beautiful.  His characters always seem somewhat pained, and the angles of his lines are often harsh.  So I was really unsure what to expect in an “erotic” story from him.

The fact that one of the first few pages states that this book is not to be sold to anyone under the age of 18 should let you know that by erotic, they mean explicit. (I did notice that the caveat was buried a few pages in, though).  And, indeed it is.  Far more than I imagined it would be. (more…)

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Barenaked Ladies (Sands Bethlehem Event Center, Bethlehem, PA, October 18, 2013)

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Bethlehem, PA, Daft Punk, Led Zeppelin, Luke Doucet, Melissa McClelland, Sands Bethlehem Event Center, Styx, The Animals, Violent Femmes, Whitehorse on October 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 18, 2013] Barenaked Ladies

Sarah and I saw BNL this summer with our friend Megan, and the show was great.  That marked the fourth or fifth time that I’d seen them.  When we found out that they were coming through again (to the close to us and cool Bethlehem Sands) we thought it might be fun to see them again.  Especially with our friends Matt and Marisa who like them but had never seen them.  So we met up and had a very fun time.  We ate at Emeril’s Burgers and More.  The burger was good (although it took an incredibly long time for it to arrive).  The strange thing about the burger was that it was very crispy on the outside (which was good) but rather and odd shade of  pink on the inside (which may have been the lighting, but it was certainly pinker than usual for medium), but it was not juicy/bloody—how is something pink but not juicy?  It was weird.  But still rather tasty.

But back to the show.  Our seats were in Row 20, which was much better than our seats this summer. The pictures here are mine taken with my phone—they’re blurrier than I’d like, but not terrible.

And this show was a ton of fun and full of surprises.  They started with “Limits” an unexpected song from their new album.  And then they jumped into “Never is Enough” a surprise old song.  Ed always does an introductory rap (which no one ever includes in the setlists online for some reason).  This one, while not as good as the PNC Bank Center one was enjoyable.  Ed explained that he ran a half marathon that day on the Sands grounds.  Well, actually he ran a block but did cross the finish line (the band played along with Da Don’t Run Run).  It was very funny.  “Pinch Me” is the new crowd favorite.  Whereas they used to throw Mac and Cheese during $1,000,000, now they throw underwear.  And much hilarity ensues. (more…)

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Whitehorse (Sands Bethlehem Event Center, Bethlehem, PA, October 18, 2013) [BARENAKED LADIES]

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Bethlehem, PA, Luke Doucet, Melissa McClelland, Rock duo, Sands Bethlehem Event Center, Whitehorse on October 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 18, 2013] Whitehorse

Whitehorse opened for Barenaked Ladies at the Bethlehem Sands (our new favorite slightly larger venue–even if the acoustics aren’t great, the seating is good and the prices reasonable–we were in the 20th row for this set, which was really perfect).

I had never heard of Whitehorse, so when I saw that they were opening for Barenaked Ladies, I wanted to see what they were all about.  I found a concert from Mountain Stage which was enjoyable but which I felt pigeonholed the band as a kind of country folk duo.  They weren’t exactly what I imagined when I thought of an opening band for BNL.  I actually wondered if BNL’s show would be more mellow in general, too.

Well, Whitehorse absolutely blew me away on stage.

They opened as I expected, with Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland (who were solo performers and recently got married) playing guitars and singing into one microphone (that last part I didn’t expect).  They sounded great together.  And the song (“No Glamour in the Hammer”) was very nice—mellow folk with a hint of country.  And then things got really interesting.  They each moved to a different microphone.  McClelland switched to a bass, Doucet switched to an electric guitar.  And then they started playing some percussion—Doucet played a bass drum with his foot while playing the guitar.  Then he picked up some random percussion objects—small drums, maracas, even pots and pans—and hit them a few times.  And that’s when I realized they were looping the percussion and building the rest of the song from that.  McClelland played some keyboard and, at one point, she began singing into a distorted microphone to create some cool vocals which she also looped.  A video camera closeup revealed that the “microphone” was actually an old-fashioned telephone.  The first song went on for a pretty long time, building and growing and expanding  And by the end of the song the crowd was hooked.

What was completely evident was just how much fun they were having.  Both of them were smiling all the way through the set, in between singing of course.  They looked at each other and shared moments, thanked us and BNL and told good stories to lead up to the songs.  (more…)

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Tom Bissell–3 book reviews (Harper’s, August 2013)

Posted in Adelle Waldman, Alice Munro, Barenaked Ladies, Book Reviews, David Foster Wallace, George Eliot, Harper's, Jim Guthrie, Kathleen Edwards, Kevin Hearn, McSweeney's, Neil Young, Peter Orner, Rheostatics, Sex, Short Story, Sloan, Susan Choi, Tiny Desk Concert, Tom Bissell on September 21, 2013| 2 Comments »

aug2013SOUNDTRACK: JIM GUTHRIE-Tiny Desk Concert #294 (August 10, 2013).

jimgI was unfamiliar with Guthrie before this set and I almost didn’t play it because of his mustache–he just looks so country to me.  But then I read that he and his band drove 9 hours from Ontario just to do the show (which is 11 minutes long, so that’s pretty crazy).  But the set is really good.

The three songs come from Guthrie’s new album Takes Time (his first solo album in ten years).  And I was hooked…not right from the start, but 15 seconds into “The Difference a Day makes” when the guitar plays the chorus riff.  There is something so… Canadian about the melody line.  It reminds me of Neil Young, Sloan, Rheostatics, even Kathleen Edwards, all of these great Canadian songwriters who play with slightly different melodies.  The fact that he sings “doubt” and “out” with an Ontario accent solidifies it.  It’s one of my favorite mellow songs of the year.  “Before & After” sounds a bit like  Barenaked Ladies mellow song, like something  written by Kevin Hearn.  I tend to not like the Hearn songs, but I thin kit’s that I don’t like Hearn’s voice, because I like this song quite a lot.

Guthrie has a delicate but strong voice–I can’t imagine him screaming, but he conveys a lot.  Especially in the final song, the more mellow (and minor key) “Like a Lake.”  I’ve heard Tiny Desk shows that go on for five or six songs.  I wish that Bob and Robin had let them play for ten more minutes. Now I’m off to find his records.  Check it out.

[READ: September 10, 2013] 3 book reviews

Tom Bissell reviewed three new books in the August 2013 issue of Harper’s.  I like Bissell in general and since I’ll probably wind up writing about these when they get collected anyway, why not jump the gun here.  Especially when there’s three good-sounding books like these.

sagamoreThe first is Peter Orner’s Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge.  I know Orner from McSweeney’s mostly, where I’ve read a few of his things  But one of the stories that Bissell mentions from this short story collection sounds familiar and yet it doesn’t seem to be something I’ve read.  Hmmm.  Well anyhow, he says that Orner’s previous book (with a title that Bissell assumes he had to fight to keep–The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo) was a great piece of fiction about Africa, and that his previous collection Esther Stories was also very solid.

This book is a little stranger—bundled into 4 sections, it includes more than fifty “stories” and is all of 200 pages.  (Sounds like just the kind of thing I can get into).  Bissell suggests that the stories have a layer of remove, like someone telling a story about someone telling a story.  Or, if they were about a bank robbery, the story would actually be about someone describing having once met the guy who sold the robbers their ski masks.  But the real selling point for me was this pithy description of the collection: imagine Brief Interviews with Hideous Men written by Alice Munro.   That sounds hard to pass up. (more…)

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Roddy Doyle–Not Just for Christmas (1999)

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Cancer as plot device, Drinking, Dublin, Ireland, Irish Writer, Jealousy, Live from Mountain Stage, Roddy Doyle, Short Books on August 31, 2013| Leave a Comment »

xmasSOUNDTRACK: BARENAKED LADIES-Live from Mountain Stage (Jan 19, 1995).

barenakedladiesThis is wonderful show from 1995 (it was recorded on Super Bowl Sunday, which explains the football jokes…including the Baltimore football team that played in the CFL for literally one year). Having seen BNL recently (and enjoyed them), I forgot how much more bouncey and fun their earlier shows were (as their earlier songs were in general more bouncey and fun).  This show is also interesting because Andy Creeggan is still in the band.  Andy is Tim (bass) Creeggan’s brother.  And I have to wonder if he is doing some of the great harmonies (especially on “Alternative Girlfriend,” which I’ve never heard anywhere else).

I love each of the four songs they play here: “Life in a Nutshell,” “Jane” (a song where their harmonies are absolutely wonderful).  “Great Provider” slows things down but allows for Tim’s great bass work.  The set ends with one of my favorite songs “Alternative Girlfriend.”  They disingenuously announce that they will be playing the Mountain Stage theme song and I think everyone is a little bummed that they didn’t.  But I was just as happy to hear “Alternative Girlfriend and this is where those great unexpected harmonies come in.  They even throw in a smidgen of “My Sharona” for fun.

I’ll be seeing BNL again in a month.  After seeing them this summer, I wanted to tell them to dig deep into their catalog for some of their middle albums tracks (like the ones here).  Since most people who see them are die hards, we’d all love some of these older tracks!

Enjoy the set here.  Sadly, you only get to see Steven Page’s glorious mustache in this photo.

[READ: August 24, 2013] Not Just for Christmas

In addition to writing a lot of novels, Roddy Doyle has written a number of smaller books.  Like this one.  This was actually written for The Open Door series which is a series of six books by different authors that are designed to help adult readers who have trouble reading.  The stories are meant to be short, engaging and relatively easy to read.

I wasn’t conscious of this story being easy to read, but it is certainly simple.  It is 77 pages with big print and probably counts more like a short story, although I think it gets classified as a novella.

Simplicity aside, the story is a very good one.  Danny and Jimmy Murphy are brothers.  But they haven’t seen each other in twenty years.    When they were younger, they were inseparable and, although they were a year apart, people assumed they were twins.  We see a few instances from their childhood where they finished each others’ sentences and had a kind of psychic connection. (more…)

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Woody Allen—“Now Where Did I Leave that Oxygen Tank” (New Yorker, August 5, 2013)

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Beastie Boys, Funny (ha ha), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story, Simon Rich, Woody Allen on August 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_08_05_13Cuneo.inddSOUNDTRACK: BARENAKED LADIES-Stop Us If You’ve Heard This One Before (2011).

stopThis is a “rarities” collection that was originally to be released as part of their released at the same time greatest hits.  I put rarities in quotes because the collection is actually rather disappointing–there are a lot of unreleased tracks, but they are primarily demos of more recent songs which don’t sound all that different from the actual recorded versions.  There are a few live tracks (the best thing on here) and one or two otherwise unreleased tracks–but not the unreleased tracks that came on that greatest hits record (Disc One).

“I Don’t Get It Anymore” is the only track on the disc that didn’t get a more formal release elsewhere (except for one obvious exception).  It is a slow ballad type song—the kind that BNL had been heading more towards as they matured. It’s a good, solid song and the combination of Page and Robertson makes this song always enjoyable.

“Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!” was released as a B-side (although this is said to be a “Stereo Mix” whatever that means).  “Half a Heart” was re-recorded for Are Men.

That leaves some demos and here’s where most of my complaints lie, for two different reasons.  “The Old Apartment” is nice to hear but it is an acoustic guitar version done solely by Page.  It’s also clearly an early version, because it lacks all of the oomph that makes the final product so good.  I know it’s a demo, but some demos are better than other.  The other bummer demo parts are actually too close to the final product.  “Second Best” eventually appeared on Everything to Everyone, this is a demo version  “I Can I Will I Do” is a demo that appeared on Are Me.  “Adrift” is a pretty, string-filled version of the song from Are Men.  The sad thing is I can’t tell what’s different about them.  The final demo “Long While” is a song that never appeared elsewhere (but would likely have appeared on Everything.  It sounds finalized and not like a demo and it, along with the first song are nice new tracks for fans.

There’s a remix of “One Week” which has been released already and which is frankly pretty boring.  It’s got a few extra lines sampled and a few extra sounds, but otherwise not all that different from the original.

That leaves the lives songs, which, as I said, are a treat.  “The Same Thing” is a very enjoyable live version.  The strange thing about that live song is that the crowd seems absolutely wild—full of screaming young girls.  It sounds a little phony given the BNL shows I’ve been to (were they that huge in 1992/93).  But those same cheers are on “Teenage Wasteland” a song which has not been elsewhere.  The intro to the song is very funny and the song itself is really good.  Shame it didn’t get an official recording.

The final track is the huge highlight though.  It’s a faithful cover of the Beastie Boys’ “Shake Your Rump.”  It is fun and surprisingly right on.  This recording comes from Santa Maria Hilton on 10/13/1994–they played this song a lot during that tour.

Those few highlights aside, this collection a pretty big disappointment.  BNL has some great stuff in their archives (including all of their earlier tapes that deserve a proper release).  Are the Ladies to mature to release this old stuff?  Let’s hope not.  It’s been 20 years after all.

[READ: August 7, 2013] “Now Where Did I Leave that Oxygen Tank”

I have been disappointed with a lot of Shouts and Murmurs lately—many feel like a one note joke that goes on and on.  And so I’ve gotten to the point where I read the first paragraph, determine if it’s going to be funny and more of ten than not, just skip it.  Short, humorous pieces take many shapes, and many people can do wonders in this format (Simon Rich springs to mind because her brings in a dozen different ideas in one piece).  Woody Allen is another for very different reasons.  He knows how to write short comic pieces that are a story unto themselves and which end up being very satisfying.

And this is a very good one, despite the somewhat unpromising title (and illustration which gives a bit away).

And yet, how’s this for a great opening that is ultimately full of misdirection:  “How my wife was able to transmute the ingredients of an award-winning recipe for chocolate brownies into twelve perfect squares of granite was a feat that only medieval alchemists could appreciate.”  The man ate the brownie and is in the dentist’s office.  Where he reads about patients getting things stitched up in them after surgery (6000 a year the USA Today says).

A lot of writers like to throw in absurdities, but to my ear absurdity either works great or falls flat.   Allen’s works great.  His protagonist is a playwright.  And his complaint is that a critic compared his recent play “to typhus.”  Outstanding joke.  The playwright has suffered from writer’s block, but now he seizes upon the lost items tidbit and works though a new play. (more…)

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Last Summer on Earth: Guster, Ben Folds Five and Barenaked Ladies (PNC Bank Center, Holmdel NJ, July 20, 2013)

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds Five, Boothby Graffoe, Guster, Set in New Jersey!, Talking Heads, The Conjuring, Violent Femmes on July 31, 2013| 1 Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 20, 2013] Last Summer on Earth

lsoeWhen I heard that three bands who I like very much were playing, it was an obvious decision to get tickets.  And thanks to Sarah’s cousin, Kate who lives nearby, we were able to avoid the assholian $9/ticket fee from Ticketmaster.  $9 a ticket??  Assholes.  Interestingly, we got very good seats (thanks again, Kate), but for one reason or another, they were upgrading lawn seat tickets for an extra $10.  I read online that for the price of a lawn seat and $10, they got sixth row.  SIXTH ROW!  Damn.

We arrived at the show just in time to hear Ed Robertson introducing the opening act (an opening act when there are three bands!).  The opening act was a guy named Boothby Graffoe.  What?  Well, Graffoe is an English comedian and singer/songwriter.  Most of his songs are funny.  And so were these in the five song set: (more…)

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Ben Hatke–Zita the Spacegirl (2010)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Adventure, Barenaked Ladies, Beastie Boys, Ben Hatke, Children's Books, Chumbawamba, Eddie Vedder, End of the World, Fantasy, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Harvey Danger, Nine Inch Nails, Semisonic, Short Books, Terry Gilliam, The Rugburns on July 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

zitaSOUNDTRACK: “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-Running with Scissors (1999).

Running_with_Scissors_(Weird_Al_Yankovic_album_-_cover_art)This is the first album Al released with is new look—LASIK surgery and long hair.  He looked quite different, but it didn’t diminish his song writing skills.  Running with Scissors is a pretty great collection of songs.

“The Saga Begins” is a genius parody taking the music of “American Pie” and merging it with the plot from Star Wars Episode I.  The way he retells the story is snarky and funny.  “My Baby’s in Love with Eddie Vedder” is a weird song—an accordion-based zydeco song about, well, a guy whose girl loves Eddie Vedder.  Vedder is kind of a weird person to pick (since he does make fun of him), although I guess it’s pretty mild abuse.  “Pretty Fly for a Rabbi” opens with a joke on a Def Leppard song (in Hebrew) but then moves on to “Pretty Fly for a White Guy.”  The original is pretty goofy and there’s not much Al could have done to it except this—changing it to being all about a rabbi. I like this version better than the original now.

The next track is the theme for The Weird Al Show.  It’s utter nonsense, but very funny.  And it packs a lot in to the 75 seconds that it lasts.  “Jerry Springer” is a parody of Barenaked Ladies’ “One Week.”  The original is pretty weird/funny, so this seems an odd choice, and yet Al’s specifics to the Jerry Springer show is pretty funny.  Of course I hate shows like that so I don’t love this song.

“Germs” is a style parody of Nine Inch nails (the song opens a like “Terrible Lie”, and then moves through some other songs).  The sound is uncanny in its soundalikeness (except perhaps the “microscopic bacteria” section which is a little too goofy sounding even for NIN.

“Polka Power” is one of the first medleys where the parodied songs seem utterly dated.  Like The Spice Girls, Harvey Danger, Backstreet Boys (which I only know because he says “Backstreet’s Back.” Smash Mouth.  Chumbawamba, Marchy Playground, and Semisonic.  Of course, there is also a Beastie Boys line (“Intergalactic”), but it’s a very era specific song.  “Your Horoscope for Today” is a ska song of horoscopes inspired by The Onion (which is hilarious).

Of course, nothing comes close to “Its All About the Pentiums,” Al’s first rap song about being a total dork  It is amazing—heavy guitars and lots of screaming.  It’s even more bad ass than the original.  And the smack talk is hilarious Asking about his computer: “You think your Commodore 64 is really neato.  What kind of chip you got in there, a Dorito?”).  I can listen to this song over and over.  It’s a wonderful precursor to “White and Nerdy.”  “Truck Drivin’ Song” has a remarkably deep voice for Al. It’s about driving a truck (as a transvestite).  The humor is childish but funny and with that voice it’s particularly so.  “Grapefruit Diet” is another series of jokes about being fat, but it works very well as a parody of “Zoot Suit Riot” with the jazzy horns and all.

That leaves “Albuquerque” an eleven, yes eleven, minute story song.  It’s a style parody of a song by The Rugburns which I didn’t know until recently (called Dick’s Automotive, but that song is much more “adult” than Al’s. The song is simple enough but the lyrics are wondrously absurd and very very funny.  And as it goes on and on and on you just marvel at the mind that created it.  And it’s catchy too.

Scissors is a great album which holds up quite well after 14 years.

[READ: June 23, 2013] Zita the Space Girl

I’d actually read the sequel to this book first, but I quickly found this first book and the family devoured it, too.

This is a charming and sweetly drawn series about a girl, Zita, who winds up in outer space.  As it opens, Zita is being a bit of a bully to her friend Joseph.  Not horrible but teasing in the way friends can do.  And when they find a giant meteor hole and a space-type gadget with a big red button on it, of course she threatens to push it in front to him,  He freaks out, but she does it anyhow.  And when she does, another dimension opens up and sucks Joseph away.  Oops.

So she pushes it again and winds up in the same place which she realizes is very very different from her own.  The thing that has Joseph is all tentacles in a diver’s helmet.  But that’s just one of the weird creatures here (as seen in Gilliam’s Guide to Sentient Species–which I take as a tribute to Terry Gilliam).  Like Strong-Strong, a large lumbering biped (who helps Zita), and a group of chicken creatures (who do not).  There’s also a man who plays a flute (called Piper) who may or may not be a friend.  She also meets a giant mouse named Pizzicato, but which Zita just calls Mouse.  Mouse is very sweet and communicates through a printer around its neck. (more…)

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My Most Favorite Christmas Songs [Updated and Expanded for 2011]

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Brian Wilson, Canadian Music, Christmas Album, Consumerism, David Bowie, Paul Debraski, Radio, Toys, War, Weekend Edition on December 20, 2011| 1 Comment »

I used to not like Christmas songs very much.  Mostly because they;re unavoidable at the holidays but also because if you subject yourself to radio and mall versions, you get a really really bad selection of tunes.  The lowest common denominator of low denominators.

Sarah is a huge fan of Christmas music (even intentionally putting on Magic ninety-eight point threeeeeeeeee) during the holiday season (which may indeed be 50/50 when it comes to music and commercials and which tends to play quite a bit off my least-favorite song list, but they at least mix it up).  And, buying some of our own Christmas music (including alternate versions and new songs) has really helped get the monotony out of our mix.

This is a list that I created in 2008 and I see that it hasn’t really changed much at all.  There are some albums that we have recently acquired which I haven’t digested enough to see if they rank here or not.  But perhaps by the end of the holiday I’ll have a new post about new favorites.

Sarah’s comments are in red.  And, interestingly, she has created her own favorites list on her site.  Let’s see if anything has changed for her.

So, here’s my favorite Christmas songs circa 2008. (more…)

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