SOUNDTRACK: FATHER FIGURES-Tiny Desk Concert #273 (April 29, 2013).
Bob Boilen describes Father Figures as “It was brash, zany, brainy, scary and danceable.” The band formed in NYU around 2007 with Adam Schatz on sax and effects, Jas Walton on sax, Spencer Zahn on upright bass, Ian Chang on drums and Ross Edwards on keyboards.
“Doomed To Fail” is fast and rocking but very jazzy. The two saxes play fast romping riffs while the keys play along. Then things slow down as the bass and keyboards play a trippy, spacey-sounding melody (with occasional accents from the saxes). The middle is noisy and skronky with some great rock bass and drums holding it down. The song builds and builds to a shrieking climax at which point the drummer gives few clicks on his snare before the song resumes again for a brief coda
“This Is The Way We Mean” opens with the 2 saxes playing off of each other before the bass comes in and lays a rhythm down. Then it slows down with more cool, echoing synth sections. One of the sax players starts playing percussion—including things all over Bob’s desk.
The first two songs are about 5 minutes each, but the last one is ten. “Where Did You Come From?” opens slowly and kind of trippy but it slows even further at the 3 minute mark to just some taps on the snare and bass notes. Saxes come in around six minutes but it’s really fun to watch Chang on drums as he’s quite animated. This song is interesting because although it keeps building and building, there is no extravagant climax, it fades quietly as it began.
[READ: July 5, 2016] Desmond Pucket and the Cloverfield Junior High Carnival of Horrors
By now, the Desmond Pucket series is in full swing (how can Tatulli write these books as well as a daily comic strip?). Desmond is headed to 7th grade. I like that the events of the summer (the previous book) have a huge impact on this book and that things aren’t simply stagnant in the Pucket-verse.
Like the other two books, this one is a really fast read (it’s over 200 pages but feels like it’s about 50). And it’s chock full of fun illustrations (that are by “Desmond”) as well.
In fact even though Desmond is heading back to the same school, this year he’s a 7th grader–he’s weirded out about being in the same building but in a different hallway (and the dorky outfit he has to wear for going back to school).
When he gets to the first class–writing, their teacher tell them to write something original about what they did that summer–but they can do in whatever style they want. And so Desmond creates a graphic novel. I love that the graphic novel recaps the previous summer in a great fashion and sets us up for this action of this book. He gets a B+and is pretty happy about that. But he is unhappy about the note at the end of the book: The Cloverfield Jr High Carnival of Horrors is to be cancelled this year.
In sum: the junior high principal was awesome. She was open to all kinds of things and realized that the school could make a lot of money with a good haunted house. And the money they raised went to the library (this book loves libraries so much, I have to sing its praises even more). (more…)
I Just Read About That... 