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Archive for the ‘Crooked Fingers’ Category

Ann Beattie-“Save a Horse Ride a Cowgirl” (New Yorker, November 23, 2015)

Posted in Ann Beattie, Compote, Crooked Fingers, Death, Donald Sutherland, Field Recordings, Klute, Marriage (Happy), New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Sasquatch Music Festival, Short Story, Titus Andronicus, We Are Augustines on November 23, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 SOUNDTRACK: WE ARE AUGUSTINES-“New Drink for the Old Drunk” (Field Recordings, September 5, 2012).

I have never heard of We Are Augustines (and I’m pretty amazed to see them referenced with Titus Andronicus as if they were big enough to be known back in 2012.  Were they?)

For this Field Recording [We Are Augustines: Somewhere Over The Mountain], the three guys are on top of a mountain outside of the Sasquatch! Music Festival (where it is very windy, they keep saying).

The singer starts singing a song (perhaps an improv) and the band joins in briefly.  Then with two guitars and a box drum, they move on to their song proper.

The Brooklyn band We Are Augustines wouldn’t seem to lend itself to windblown acoustic sing-alongs: The songs on 2011’s Rise Ye Sunken Shipssongs bellow and soar in the electric, anthemic spirit of, say, Titus Andronicus. But for this Field Recording, captured during the closest thing to a quiet moment at the 2012 Sasquatch! Music Festival, the trio strapped on acoustic guitars — and grabbed a box for percussion — long enough to perform a cover of Crooked Fingers’ “New Drink for the Old Drunk.”

This has a good raw powerful feel and their style suits an acoustic performance–of course, this is a cover, so I still know little about them.  They were able to drown out the actual Festival (not far away at all), which you can hear as the song comes to and end.

[READ: January 7, 2017] “Save a Horse Ride a Cowgirl”

I really enjoyed this story a lot although I found it hard to follow a bit.  This was primarily because the protagonist of the story is not the person who opens the story.

It opens with Sterne crashing his car into the car of two young girls, Heidi and Bree.  We stay at the scene for a few paragraphs and we soon learn that Sterne was not at fault–the girls had been texting while driving.

We find this out through Sterne’s brother, Bradley, a lawyer.  And this story s all about Bradley. (more…)

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Cathy Hellier–“Gentleman’s Servant” (Colonial Williamsburg: The Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Winter 2012)

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Cathy Hellier, Colonial Williamsburg, Crooked Fingers, Essays, History, Racism, Slavery, St. Vincent, The National, War on April 14, 2012| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ST. VINCENT AND THE NATIONAL-“Sleep All Summer” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

This cover is by The National with St. Vincent singing a duet with The National’s singer.  The original, by Crooked Fingers, is also a male/female duet, so this works nicely.  Indeed, having listened to the original, there’s not a lot of difference between these two versions.

The singer from The National has a distinctively deep voice.  And I really like St Vincent, although on this song, she’s not really doing anything amazing, she’s just singing (very nicely, but she could be anyone).

It’s a perfectly nice song, in both versions.  The original is a bit more interesting musically, but I like the vocals in the new version better.

[READ: March 15, 2012] “Gentleman’s Servant”

If you have read my other three posts about articles from Colonial Williamsburg, you have seen the cover of this magazine.  And, man, does it make me uncomfortable.  About as uncomfortable as I feared this article was going to make me.  I almost didn’t read it.  In the previous article I mentioned how the photos look…wrong.  And none look more wrong to me than the series of pictures for this article.

However, this article was not about slaves exactly.  It was more about servants or valets.  The article immediately puts us at our ease by telling us that there are schools today that teach how to be a valet, primarily in England.  And they make it out to be not such a bad gig.  It puts me in mind of Jeeves and Wooster, and what a lark it must all be.

Of course in the 18th century things were quite different (although it is described as similar duties–caring for the master and the master’s clothes and horse and such).  This paragraph tucks in a key phrase as it tries to make it all seem casual: (more…)

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