S
OUNDTRACK: FRANK TURNER & THE SLEEPING SOULS Live at the Newport Folk Festival (2013).
Whenever NPR streams and saves festivals shows, I like to check out the bands I love (of course), but I also check out some of the bands I’d never heard of before. And sometimes it leads to a fantastic discovery. Like Frank Turner. I had no idea who he was, but he was described as folk-punk which is quite accurate. He reminds me of Billy Bragg in his younger, harder days. Turner is British, he has a very thick accent when he sings and while he is nowhere near as political as Bragg, he treads in that same line of folkiness.
His lead off track, “Four Simple Words” (the words are “I Want to Dance”) begins as a folkie song, but it quickly morphs into a rollicking stomper (louder than most bands at Newport, he theorizes). But a song like “Try This at Home” seems to speak to his overall ethos—music for the people by the people:
Because there’s no such thing as rock stars There’s just people who play music
And some of them are just like us And some of them are dicks
So quick, turn off your stereo Pick up that pen and paper
Yeah, you could do much better Than some skinny half-arsed English country singer
There are a few more specifically pointed messages like “Glory Hallelujah,” whose chorus goes “There is no-o-o God, so clap your hands together.” As well as a funny (but not really) song which he introduces as being written because he read Gene Simmons’ autobiography. Simmons says he slept with 4,600 some women which he knows because he has taken a Polaroid of each one. Turner is appalled “what an ass” and wrote “Wherefore Art Thou, Gene Simmons” as a response.
But the majority of songs are about love and life, going home again and playing music. And, in this live setting Turner is fantastic—getting the crowd to sing along, having great banter and being a wonderful showman.
The final song is a great sing-along with the simple but effective chorus of: “I won’t sit down and I won’t shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.” I’m totally enjoying Turner’s music and now I’m going to have to check out his actual releases (he has four or five). See more about him at his website.
[READ: July 20, 2013] Lexicon.
Virginia Woolf has gotten a hold of a word which has caused untold destruction in a small town in Australia. W.B. Yeats has sent T.S. Eliot and a non-poet named Wil to get the word back and, if possible to kill Virginia Woolf.
Intrigued? Yeah me too.
I saw this book in Barnes & Noble and was really excited that Barry had a new book out. And when I pointed it out to Sarah she said , “I already have a hold on it.” So, when it came in I took it from her pile and now it has to go back before she gets a chance to read it.
Imprinted in the crazy cover image are a series of odd characters and amid them it says 4 why did you do it. I was trying to figure out if there was more to this secret message, but there isn’t. However, it is a clue to what lies inside.
I guess in the grand scheme of things, the story is pretty simple (if not a little confusing). What I laid out above is the skeletal outline; however, Barry interweaves the story with past and future (and a whole lot of mind control) and he begins the book right in the middle of utter chaos. (more…)
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I am reposting exactly what I wrote last year:
