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Archive for the ‘Carole King’ Category

Joe Pug (Boot and Saddle, Philadelphia, PA, December 7, 2018) [STRAND OF OAKS Winter Classic IV, Night 2]

Posted in Boot & Saddle, Carole King, Joe Pug, Philadelphia, PA, Strand of Oaks on December 7, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: December 7, 2018] Joe Pug

I had no idea who Joe Pug was before this show. In fact, I’ve never heard of him.  So it was quite a surprise to discover that he had Strand of Oaks open for him on a show when Strand of Oaks Pope Killdragon came out.  Since Strand of Oaks has grown in popularity, he was returning the opening slot favor.

Joe Pug sings folks songs and writes string solid lyrics.  His song “Bright Beginnings” was quite lovely.

Of course, the ones I remember best are the funny ones. Like the one he introduces as an opportunity to tell his wife (here he hemmed and hawed about the right way to say this, until someone warned him to be careful).  Finally he revealed that it was a way to tell his wife that he didn’t work in a bank, so money will likely be tight.  It was a delightfully amusing song. (more…)

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Adam Erlich Sachs–“The Philosophers” (New Yorker, February 1, 2016)

Posted in Adam Erlich Sachs, Carole King, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Lake Street Dive, New Yorker, Short Story, Time Travel, Tiny Desk Concert on March 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

216SOUNDTRACK: LAKE STREET DIVE-Tiny Desk Concert #511 (February 29, 2016).

lsdLake Street Dive are a trendy band all of a sudden (they’ve been around for ten years, evidently).  And what’s not to like about them?  Lead singer Rachael Price has a powerful soulful voice and she’s really pretty.  Their harmonies are really excellent.  And their songs are fairly simple and easy to follow.

And I can’t stand them.

They push all of my button.  I don’t like Price’s soulful voice (even though it is really powerful and sounds great–I just don’t like it).  I don’t like the way their backing vocals are vaguely do-wop, a sound I don’t like in general.  And I don’t like the way they veer towards country.

I should like them–this set is fun and the crowd is really into it.  Price sounds rather like Carole King, I love that the drummer uses brushes and that he wrote the first song.  I love that the bassist plays an upright bass and that she wrote the second song and sings lovely harmonies.  And I like that the guitarist plays a trumpet solo on the final song.

I even like the lyrics to the final song, “thank the good lord for those godawful things that brought you right back to me.”  Except that they sing that line about 50 times in the song.

I’m already tired of them and I expect that I’ll be even more sick of them before the year is out.

[READ: January 27, 2016] “The Philosophers” 

I don’t know Adam Ehrlich Sachs at all, and I have to say I was pretty surprised by this story.

It seemed like it would be pretty serious, what with that title and all.  It also seemed to have three “sections.” So I was expecting something pretty intense.

But instead, it was three humorous short stories called “Our System,” “Two Hats” and “The Madman’s Time Machine.”

“Our System” plays off the story that a person who loses the ability to use his muscles is still able to communicate through a blink or a tap or something.  And it follows the life story a of a philosopher who is so afflicted.  The man tries to communicate his life’s philosophy to his son.  But since the disease is hereditary, his son gets it too.  Then he has to learn a way to communicate with his own son.

It seems rather ponderous at first but then it quickly grows absurd as we see multiple generations trying to transcribe those initial thoughts.

“Two Hats” explores the idea of a person who wears two hats and how maybe the hats themselves are essential for him to be able to keep his jobs separated.  Again, it starts out somewhat reasonable but grows more and more absurd, with bigger and bigger hats.

The final story is “The Madman’s Time Machine” which was my favorite.  It is indeed about a time machine and whether the man who made it is crazy or not.  I really enjoyed the way it was written and the way it did so much in such a little space.  The conclusion was really well done.

I can see enjoying short pieces from him from time to time.

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Speaking with the Angel (2000)

Posted in Alice Cooper, BLK JCK, Boredom, Carole King, Colin Firth, Dave Eggers, Death, Dreams, Fables, Fantasy, Fears, Fishbone, Frank Zappa, Gil Scot-Heron, Giles Smith, Glee, Helen Fielding, Humiliation, Irvine Welsh, John O'Farrell, Melissa Bank, Nick Hornby, Nina Simone, Of Montreal, OutKast, Patrick Marber, Pete Shelley, Politicians, Prince, Prison, Punks, Rob Roy, Robert Harris, Roddy Doyle, Set at School, Short Story, The Buzzcocks, TV on the Radio, Zadie Smith on October 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: The Believer July/August 2010 Music Issue Compilation CD: “We Bumped Our Heads Against the Clouds” (2010).

Of all the Believer music compilations, this is by far my least favorite.  It would be oversimplifying things to say that the music is not for me, but in many respects it is not.  Chuck Lightning, the curator of the project states that this compilation is more or less a look into the state of the union for black artists.  And that invariably means a lot of R&B and songs that might be heard on Glee (I like the show, but I never know any of the music).

Deep Cotton’s “Self!” reminds me of novelty dance hit from the late 80s.  Of Montreal, who I thought sounded totally different from this, offer “Hydra Fancies” which is as catchy a disco anthem as any disco anthem can be.  Roman GianArthur’s “Depraved Valet” is an amazingly falsettoed Prince knock off.  Cody Chestnutt’s “”Come Back Like Spring” is a simple almost acapella ode to spring.  Saul Williams’ oddly titled “B.S. in a Tampon” is a spoken word with acoustic guitar that reminds me of Gil Scot-Heron.  Janelle Monáe’s “Cold War” is the first really catchy song (the la las remind me of Carole King), although  I could do without the overstated “Calinda” part and the extended fade.

The first song I really liked was BLK JCKs “Iietys” which sounded enough like TV on the Radio to be really interesting.  Spree Wilson’s “Chaos” also sounds like TV on the Radio (the more R&B side of the band, although the guitar solo is a dead ringer for “Hotel California.”  Scar’s “Rewind” is the song that should be on Glee.  I want to hate it but it is so damned catchy, I can’t.  Again, those Oh Oh Ohs are too perfect (and the auto0tune of course is unassailable).

Rob Roy’s “Velvet Rope Blues” is my favorite song on the disc by a large distance. It’s a weird rap that reminds me of The Streets, with an awesome sung chorus ala OutKast.  Hollyweed’s “Have You Ever Made Love to a Weirdo” is a trippy, juvenile space rap that is really silly.  Sarah hates it but I kind of like it, as it’s in the spirit of Frank Zappa, (although I hate the sax solo).  Fear & Fancy’ s “Off the Grid” sounds also not unlike OutKast.  And George 2.0′ s “Turn Off the TV” is a anti-TV rap rant (with the somewhat ironic conclusion that you yourself might end up ON the TV).

M.I.A. is probably the biggest name on the disc. “Born Free” is a weird little track of highly distorted vocals over a punk guitar buzzsaw sound.  But her vocals are mixed so loud in the mix that they sound unrelated.  It sounds not unlike a Go! Team track.  This track makes me wonder how she became such a sensation.

Hot Heavy & Bad’s “One” returns to that disco sound in the vocals with some contemporary bass sounds.  It wears out its welcome pretty quickly.  Tendaberry’s “Cold Boy” sounds like a less horn-y Fishbone.  Mother Novella offers one of the few all guitar songs, “Closer 9 1/2” and it’s an okay mid tempo rocker.

The final song is pretty awesome in theory: Nina Simone covering Alice Cooper.  That’s right, Nina Simone covering Alice Cooper.  Sadly I don’t know the Alice Cooper song, so it’s a bit lost on me.

[READ: September 16, 2010] Speaking with the Angel

I bought this volume when it came out (and apparently donated $1 to TreeHouse at the same time).  It’s a collection edited by Nick Hornby (and the cover is designed similarly to the way High Fidelity and even About a Boy were at the time (“the Hornby look,” I suppose).

I didn’t buy it for Hornby alone, although he does have a story in it, but because it looked like a really promising collection of stories from authors I liked.  And for some reason I didn’t read it until now.  It includes 12 stories, and as the introduction notes, $1 was donated to TreeHouse.org.uk (in the US $1 goes to TreeHouse and another $1 goes to New York Child Learning Institute).  I don’t know if the money still goes there, but you can donate with a form at the back of the book.  (more…)

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Matthew Loux–Salt Water Taffy 2: The Seaside Adventures of Jack and Benny: A Climb Up Mt. Barnabas (2008)

Posted in Adventure, Bruce Cockburn, Canadian Music, Carole King, Children's Books, Eliza Gilkyson, Gord Downie, Graphic Novel, Greg Brown, Guy Davis, John Gorka, Lucy Kaplansky, Lynn Miles, Matthew Loux, Nature, Neil Young, Ongoing, Oni Press, Steve Earle, Summer, Supernatural, The Wailin' Jennys, Tom Waits on February 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK—DOWN AT THE SEA HOTEL (2007).

This has rapidly become one of my favorite CDs for our kids.  It’s a collection of lullabies written by some great artists with performances by: Guy Davis, Lucy Kaplansky, John Gorka, Eliza Gilkyson, The Wailin’ Jennys and Lynn Miles.  They play either solo or in groups to create a wonderful collection of tracks which maintains an overall cohesive sound.

It’s nice to have a collection that, although it contains many different singers, retains a similar style, a style that feels like a group of folk singers playing together just to get you to relax.

The songwriters include: Greg Brown, Tom Waits, Bruce Cockburn, Gord Downie, Neil Young, Carole King, Steve Earle and more.  It’s a magical collection of songs. Perfect for any bedtime routine.  The only problem with it is that my daughter usually falls asleep before we get to the end, so I don’t know the last five or six tracks all that well (but I know the first batch from start to finish).

I also recently learned that you can get a very cool edition of this CD in a book format. It is an illustrated edition of the title song and it comes complete with the full CD attached in the back. The book is quite beautiful (and I wish I had gotten that version instead of just the CD).

[READ: January 26, 2010] Salt Water Taffy 2

This fantastic kids graphic novel series just gets better and better.  I enjoyed this story so much that I decided to read it to my 4 year old son.  I removed a few paragraphs and edited for length but he really enjoyed the story…leading him down a garden path to comic book enjoyment.

This book continues the story of 8 year old Jack and 11 year old Benny on their family summer vacation in the seemingly dull seaside town of Chowder Bay.   The first volume laid out enough backstory for you to know that the town is boring as all get out for the kids, with no TV even!  But the locals have plenty of adventure for the kids to get up to.

As this book opens, the family is on a nature hike.  The boys are collecting feathers to compete with Fisherman Angus’ fantastic collection of a feather from every (species of) bird on the island.  But they are easily distracted from this quest when their dad reveals that Angus isn’t the only one on the island with good stories.  For indeed, he himself once climbed to the top of Mt Barnabus (the tallest mountain around) where he fought Barnabus, the giant eagle, for the hat that he is wearing at this very moment.

The boys are awed by this and now hold thie rdad in slightly higher esteem.

Later, when the kids are playing (and one of them is wearing that very same hat), Barnabus the giant eagle swoops down and take the hat right of his head.  He proceeds to fly up to his cave on th etop of the mountain.

The rest of the book covers the boys’ decision to climb that mountain by themselves and rescue that hat.  They encounter many many dangers on the way (I edited down the wolf section a wee bit)but what they find at the top of th emounatin is by turns frightening and hilarious.  (I especially enjoyed the cameo of the little lobsters from Book1).

The resolution to the story is great, the drawings are great, and the entire sprit of the book if one of advneture and fun.  It’s a real treat to read, and I’m delighted that there;s a 3rd book already available.

The first story laid out all of the details of where and who they are.  However,

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