Because this book is about cats and dogs, I was going to put “Cats & Dogs” from The Head and The Heart as this song. Bit when I searched for “Cats & Dogs” the first video was for this song. And any band whose name is in a language I can’t read will certainly get posted here.
In fact, I didn’t even realize they were called “TXT” I thought it was something to do with text messaging.
Turns out TXT stands for Tomorrow X Together. Of course.
The video starts with five cute boys running to the a window and looking out on a cartoon world. It seemed like The Monkees.
So I was quite surprised when the song started with heavy bass and auto-tuned and I realized that duh, this must be a K-pop band.
I assumed I’d heard of all of the popular K-Pop bands by now (how many could there be?), but here’s one I’d not heard of. Nevertheless. this song has over 47 million views.
I really don’t know how to talk about K-Pop.
The five of them are adorable and pretty much identical (hair color being the distinguishing factor). They all seem to dance well (in the heavily edited sequences). All of their voices are auto-tuned so who knows if they can sing. They are also singing in at least two languages, so who knows what they are singing.
I assume the language I can’t understand is Korean, although it sounded to me like Spanish at one point (which seems very unlikely).
There’s a repeated refrain of someone gong “brrrp brrrp brrrp” which is a weird but catchy hook for all languages. I assume that none of the boys’ voices can possibly go deep enough t make that sound.
Apparently, this song has something to do with cats and dogs because there are meows and barks in the song (and in the video they do lots of synchronized cat and dog ear movements).
I’m kind of curious what the chorus actually says–are they saying the word “Pet” or is a Korean word?
At the end he sings I just wanna be your dog, but not in any way like Iggy Pop.
Sometimes it’s fun to dive into music you don’t ever experience.
[READ: February 6, 2020] Kitten Construction Company: A Bridge Too Fur
I really enjoyed the first Kitten Construction Company book. I loved the premise–not that the kittens were good at building things–but that no one took them seriously because they were so cute. It allowed for a lot of funny frustrations from our feline friends.
Well, now the city of Mewberg has fully accepted the Kitten Construction Company. They have built a new stadium with updated energy efficiencies and plumbing.
There’s a nice joke that while accepting the adulation for this stadium, architect Marmalade can’t help but knock the microphone stand off the podium. I only wish that Green had drawn it to look more deliberate–that would have been a lot funnier. Instead it almost seems like an accident. (more…)
Karl Ove mentions many bands in this book, but the deLillos are the only Norwegian band that he plays. They sing in Norwegian and play sprightly, jangly guitar pop–they would fit in very well with some of the lighter alt bands from the late 80s and early 90s.
I have no idea what they’re singing about (well, the title translates to “love” so I guess I know what they are singing about.
The singer has a high, delicate voice and there’s some interesting harmonies. I really like the way the song transitions from verse to chorus with the picked guitar notes–very catchy.
It comes from their second album, Før var det morsomt med sne (Beforeit was funin the snow), which along with their first was quite popular and was reissued with a bonus disc in the 90s. Having said that I see that Amazon has one copy of the disc and no album cover listed. Worse yet, I can’t find many other songs online (Spotify lists the album, but I can’t get it to play).
Sorry, deLillos (even searching for you gives us more Don DeLillo than you guys).
[READ: June 24, 2014] My Struggle Book Four
I started including the British edition page numbers because at my work we received both editions of the book, and I received the British one first so I grabbed it and started reading. I noticed the page numbers were quite different (the British book is taller and the print is quite bigger, although this doesn’t explain why the previous books have fewer pages).
I had been interested in the differences between editions from the get go. I had enjoyed the American editions, but I enjoyed reading this British edition more (bigger print?). But when I noticed on one of the pages that the word “realise” was spelled as I typed it, it made me wonder if the American edition changed that to the American spelling. [Actually, I see that Don Bartlett lives in Virginia, so perhaps he translates it into American first]. While I wasn’t about to go into a deep inspection of the topic, when I saw the American edition on a shelf at work, I had to do a little comparison.
And what I found out was that even though Don Bartlett is the (amazing) translator for both editions, someone (perhaps Bartlett himself?) is translating the American into British (or vice versa). I looked at a couple of pages and noticed these changes from British to American:
BRITISH EDITION = AMERICAN EDITION
Pack it in, now = Give it up, now
roll-up = rollie [about hand rolled cigarettes]
looked daggers at = gave her a dirty look
a complete prat = completely useless
is that possible? = really?
to cook and wash up = cooking and doing the dishes
I had got = I’d gotten
had penned = had written
and yes, realised = realized.
Other than select phrases, every word is exactly the same. So somebody goes through the books and changes them to British english idioms and spellings. That’s fascinating.
I also see that this is the first book I had not read an excerpt from first. Not that it would have made any difference as to whether I read the fourth one. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.
So book four is set in Håfjord, a town in Northern Norway near Finnsnes (a five hour flight away–okay I had no idea Norway was so big!). Karl Ove is 18 and has decided to become a grade school teacher there for one year. The tax breaks are great if you teach, and he plans to teach and write his masterpieces and then get out. He has no interest in teaching, but the town is small (most grades are 3-7 students), so he figures it can’t be too hard.
As in most of Karl Ove’s books, the stories jump around and flash back and do not stay all in this one time, but it is largely set in this locale.
My first thought was that I have never read a story with as much semen (both nocturnal emission and premature ejaculation) in my life. It is a strange take away from the book, but there it is. Karl Ove is 18 and really wants to have sex for the first time. About 3/4 of the way through the book he reveals that he never masturbated (it just never occurred to him, apparently, and at 18 he’s too old to start–what!?). As such, he seems to have wet dreams every night. And every time he gets near a woman, he has an orgasm too soon. He is horny all the time–it’s a bit disconcerting.
And since I mentioned that, I don’t know if Karl Ove’s life is typical of Norway, but I am shocked by the number of women who take their clothes off around him (he may have never had sex, but he was about to on at least a half-dozen occasions). And he says that all through school (from around age 13 and up) it was common place for the boys to lift up the girls’ shirts and kiss and or fondle their breasts. It is mind-boggling to me. And the 16 year olds all seem to be having sex all the time–this may be skewed from Karl Ove’s perspective, but that’s what I now believe happens in Norway.
But while sex is the main theme of the book–sex, sex sex, there is more to it.
Karl Ove’s parents have split up and his father has started drinking in earnest. The dad has remarried and has just had a baby. Incidentally, I was also shocked to read that Karl Ove’s father, who is an abusive stodgy old man who is cranky and mean and abusive and all the stuff that we read about in the other volumes was only 43 at the time that Karl Ove was 18. So the old man who I pictured as a gray-haired curmudgeon in this book is actually younger than me. Great.
In Håfjord, Karl Ove is teaching kids who range from age 13 to 16. It’s disconcerting to read about him thinking lustful thoughts about his students, until he reminds us that for most of the students, he is only 2 years older than them. I am pleased to say that he behaves himself (except in his mind) with all of the students. There’s even a really interesting flash forward to eleven years later when he runs into two of them again.
He proves to be a pretty decent teacher it seems. The kids mostly like him (the girls all think he is hot) and he is young and tries to make it fun (he himself hated school and everything about it). He even seems to help out an awkward boy (although that is never resolved). We see him teaching, trying to interact with the kids and generally being a pretty good guy.
Until the booze comes out.
For in addition to semen, this book is chock full of alcohol. Before graduating from gymnas (high school), Karl Ove basically stopped caring about anything. He spent most of his time drunk. It is astonishing the amount of drinking he does–it’s practically like an Amish Rumspringa how crazy he goes. But even in this retrospective look, he talks about how much he likes it, how it loosens him up and makes him less nervous.
But really he just spends most of his time drunk, hungover or sick. He even got into the hash scene for a while. He was living with his mom at the time and she was appalled at the way he acted–especially when he threw a party which trashed their house. She even kicked him out for a time.
He seemed to be over the drink in Håfjord, but it turns out that there’s precious little else to do except drink up there, especially when it grows dark for most of the day. So there is much drinking–he only misses class once or twice because of it but he comes very close a lot.
The irony that he is appalled at his father’s drinking, while drinking so much himself, is apparently lost on him.
The other main preoccupation with Karl Ove is music. He talks a lot about his great taste in music (he reminds me of me–a little insufferable). Back when he was in gymnas, he spent a lot of time discussing his favorite bands and favorite songs. He got a job (at 16) writing reviews for a local paper (holy crap, jealous!) and then later gets a job writing a column for another paper. For the previous book I listed a lot of the bands he mentioned, and I wish I had written them down for this one. U2 features prominently (this is 1987, so I’m guessing Joshua Tree), but also Talking Heads, a Scottish post-punk/new wave band The Associates and their album Sulk which he describes as “an utterly insane LP.” he and his brother really like The Church and Simple Minds (before they got so commercial). He also has a whole thread in which he makes connections with albums:
Briano Eno, for example, started in Roxy Music, released solo records, produced U2 and worked with Jon Hassell, David Byrne, David Bowie, and Robert Fripp; Robert Fripp played on Bowie’s Scary Monsters; Bowie produced Lou Reed, who came from Velvet Underground, and Iggy Pop, who came from the Stooges, while David Byrne was in Talking Heads, who on their best record, Remain in Light, used the guitarist Adrian Belew, who in turn played on several of Bowie’s records and was his favorite live guitarist for years. (64).
He also specifically raves about “The Great Curve” from the Talking Heads album, and of course, he raves about the first Led Zeppelin album as well.
Music is a huge part of his life (and he dresses accordingly too). It’s unclear whether the kids think this is awesome or not, but he may be a bit too much for some of the locals. The locals are mostly fishermen (which makes sense), and Karl Ove is a bit intimidated that he is so wimpy compared to them–one of the women even teases him about his tiny arms.
But his main focus is writing. He writes a few shorts stories (to my knowledge he has never published any of them). We see some excerpts and they seem fine–he fancies himself Hemingway. But he also mentions a bunch of Norwegian authors (I love when he does that). Sadly again, not too many of them have been translated into English. [I really hope that some mega fan creates a database of all of the bands and authors he mentions]. He also talks briefly about his first novel which alludes to his time teaching here. I happened to read a small summary of said novel (Out of the World) and feared that it spoiled what was going to happen. But, in fact there does appear to be a difference between his fiction and non-fiction.
The book moves very quickly–from party to party, from failed sexual attempt to the next, even from his staying up all night long trying to write. And most of the time he comes off as kind of a dick–he is also very self-critical, which somehow tempers that dickishness.
As with the other books I cannot figure out exactly why I am so addicted to his writing. I brought the book home on Thursday night and finished it (all 548 pages of it) Monday night. This really completes the picture of himself as he moved from childhood to adulthood and really lays the foundation for whatever is to come next. Early in the book he talks about the books that he loved at that age, books that talk about the move from childhood to adulthood. And thus, this book becomes something of a bildungsroman as well. Although whether or not Karl Ove actually grew up at the end of this book will have to wait until volume 5 (which I have to assume is still another year away as there is no information about it online at all!).
For ease of searching, I include: Hafjord, For var det morsomt med sne.
VH1 aired this series last year and I was intrigued by it but figured I had no time to watch an 11 hour series on the history of heavy metal. Of course, this being VH1, they have since re-aired the series on an almost continual loop. So, if you’re interested, you can always catch it.
This series was created by Sam Dunn, the documentary filmmaker who made the movie Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey. I had heard good things about the movie, but never saw it. After watching the series, I’m definitely interested in the movie. Dunn is a keener–A Canadian heavy metal fan who is really into his subject. He knows his stuff and he knows what he likes (heavy metal) and what he doesn’t like (glam metal, nu metal).
The sheer number of people he interviews is impressive (as are the number of locations he travels to). Part of me says “wow, I can’t believe he was able to interview X,” and then I remember, “X is really old and is nowhere near the level of fame that he once had.” Given that, the few hold-outs seem surprising–did they not want to have anything to do with VH1? Are they embarrassed at how uncool they are now? Just watch the show guys, you can’t be as low as some.
The only mild criticism I have is that the show relies a lot on the same talking heads over and over. Scott Ian from Anthrax, whom I love, is in every episode. Indeed, he may be a paid VH1 spokesman at this point. There are a few other dudes who show up a little more than they warrant, but hey, you use what you got, right?
What is impressive is the volume of music he includes with the show. I assume that he couldn’t get the rights to any studio recordings because every clip is live. This is good for fans in that we get to see some cool unfamiliar live footage, but some of it is current live footage which often doesn’t compare to the heyday. Having said that, there’s a lot of live footage from the early 80s–of bands that I never saw live anywhere. And that’s pretty awesome.
With an 11-part documentary there’s the possibility of exhaustion and overkill, but Dunn is an excellent craftsman he jumps around from old to new, talks about how the history impacts the current and, because of his own interests, he makes it personal rather than just informative. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: BEN FOLDS/NICK HORNBY-Lonely Avenue (2010).
As the cover of this album notes: “Ben Folds adds music and melody to Nick Hornby’s words.” And that is true. The only surprising thing about this combination is that Folds is quite a good lyricist himself, so it’s surprising that he would sacrifice his words. But regardless, the fit is a good one.
Sometimes it seems like Hornby is challenging Folds to come up with melodies for some of his more difficult lyrics which Folds lives up to). But they have such similar sensibilities that (aside from occasional references to British things) the words could have come from Folds himself (although, Hornby’s a better writer, so Folds wouldn’t have written exactly the same things).
The big surprise is the diversity of musical styles on the disc. Folds of course does play lots of different types of music on his previous discs, but I guess since the cohesion is Hornby’s words so Folds can really let loose.
The opener, “A Working Day” is a keyboard pop confection, a surprisingly 80s sounding synth song with some wry lyrics about being a writer/performer (“some guy on the net thinks I suck and he should know, he’s got his own blog”). “Picture Window” is a beautiful downer, a string-filled song that seems like a companion to Folds’ “Brick” (“You know what hope is, hope is a bastard”). It’s just as sad but the melody is gorgeous.
“Levi Johnson’s Blues” is a strangely topical song (in fact, it took me a minute to remember who he was when I first listened to the song. Anyhow, it’s a silly song about what happened to the father of Sarah Palin’s grandchild. And yet, despite the novelty of it, it’s actually a somewhat sympathetic portrait of the guy (sure he’s a redneck, but he’s just a normal guy thrust into a ridiculous spotlight–the liner notes say the chorus came from Levis (redacted) Facebook page).
“Doc Pomus” feels like a classic piano song. While “Young Dogs: is a fast romper (with great vocals) and more keyboards. “Practical Amanda” is a slow ballad (and Hornby says it’s not autobiographical at all). While “Claire’s Ninth” is a story about a young girl of divorced parents who hates having two birthdays. (With sweeping choruses!) Hornby states that this was his first accepted short story (modified for the song, of course) but the magazine that accepted it stopped publishing before his appeared. D’oh!
“Password” is a wonderful song which only makes sense when you know the name of it (which I didn’t at first, as I usually don’t look at titles right away). Throughout the song Ben spells words which leads to a cool conclusion–it’s wonderfully clever writing and it’s done in a fascinating R&B-lite style.
“From Above” is a jaunty rocker about people who never meet, although their paths cross quite often. “Saskia Hamilton” is the “single” from the record. It’s another great 80’s keyboard fueled romp. Since I have a friend named Saskia (hi, Saskia) I’m fond of this song–her name is fun to say. They have a bunch of fun in the recording too.
The final track, “Belinda” is designed like a classic 70s piano ballad (there’s a lengthy email printed in the notes that explains the construction of the song–reading that makes the song even more impressive).
It’s a great Ben Folds album. It’s not as tidy as some of his other ones–but all of that experimentation leads to some new avenues of melody. It’s a risk that paid off.
[READ: May 10, 2011] Five Dials Number 7
This issue of Five Dials was primarily about Memoir. Typically, I don’t like memoirs, but I’m finding (and this coincides with what one of the memoirs below states), that I just don’t like celebrity memoirs. Or perhaps I just like three page accounts of an incident in someone’s life (which these are).
Each of the writers below is given an introduction in which they summarize WHY they write memoirs. It’s interesting to see that many of them do, in fact, take other people’s feeling into consideration (not as seriously as Mark Twain who waited 100 years for the publication of his), but they try to do something or other to spare people’s feelings. I was intrigued also that several of the writers also talk about finding themselves through writing. One or two of them make the exercise of writing memoir sound obnoxiously solipsistic (which of course it is), but it’s nice to read ones that are interesting and not too self-centered.
CRAIG TAYLOR-A Letter from the Editor: “On Audio Detective Work and Memoir”
This letter explains the extent of the audio detective work that went into the interview (presented later) between Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming. Since I love playing with audio software, this was of especial interest to me. And it made me really look forward to the interview. (more…)
Mogwai’s second full length record goes in a slightly different direction than Young Team. Although it is still full of somewhat lengthy instrumentals, for the most part, the loud and quiet dynamic that they’ve been mastering over their EPs and Young Team is dismissed for a more atmospheric quality. There’s also a few vocal aspects that comprise some tracks. One in particular is very puzzling.
The disc opens with “Punk Rock.” The music is actually not punk at all; rather, it’s a pretty melody that plays behind a rant about punk rock spoken by Iggy Pop. It’s followed by “Cody,” a kind of sweet slow song. This one surprises even more because it has gentle vocals which are actually audible. The track is surprisingly soporific for Mogwai.
And then comes the real puzzler, “Helps Both Ways” is another slow track. But this time in the background is a broadcast of an American football game. The announcers begin by telling us about an 89 yard run that was called back due to a penalty, but the game stays on throughout the track. And I have to admit I get more absorbed in the game than the music. After these few quiet tracks,”Year 2000 Non-Compliant Cardia” is a little louder (with odd effects). It’s also much more angular than songs past.
“Kappa” is the song in which I realized that much of the songs here are more guitar note based rather than the washes of sounds and noise. “Waltz for Aidan” is indeed a waltz, another slow track. It’s followed by “May Nothing” an 8 minute track which, despite its length, never gets heavy or loud or noisy.
“Oh! How the Dogs Stack Up” changes things. It features a distorted piano which creates a very eerie 2 1/2 minutes. And it leads into the 9 minute “Ex Cowboy.” Although the general feeling of “Ex Cowboy” is mellow, there are some squealing guitars and noises as well. By about 6-minutes the song turns really chaotic, its “Chocky” is another 9-minute song (the disc is very backheavy), there’s noise faintly in the background as a simple piano melody is plucked out. It’s probably the prettiest melody on the disc, and the noisy background keep its unexpected. The disc more or less ends with “Christmas steps.” This is a rerecording of the awesome track from the No Education = No Future (Fuck the Curfew) EP. It is shorter but slower and it sounds a little more polished than the EP. I actually prefer the EP version, but this one is very good as well (it’s honestly not that different).
“Punk Rock/Puff Daddy/Antichrist” ends the disc with a fun track sounds like a drunken Chinese western It’s two minutes of backwards sounds and is actually less interesting than its title.
This is definitely their album I listen to least.
[READ: March 15, 2011] Icelander
It’s hard to even know where to begin when talking about this story. So I’ll begin by saying that even though it was confusing for so many reasons, I really enjoyed it (and the confusions were cleared up over time). This story has so many levels of intrigue and obfuscation, that it’s clear that Long thought quite hard about it (and had some wonderful inspirations).
The book opens with a Prefatory note from John Treeburg, Editor (who lives in New Uruk City). The note informs us that the author of Icelander assumes that you, the reader, will be at least a little familiar with Magnus Valison’s series The Memoirs of Emily Bean. As such, he has included notes for clarification. He has also included a Dramatis Personae. The characters in the Dramatis Personae are the characters from Valison’s series (not necessarily Icelander), and are included here for context. He also notes that his afterward will comment on the disputed authorship of this very novel.
The Dramatis Personae lists the fourteen people who Valison wrote about inThe Memoirs of Emily Bean. Except, we learn pretty early on that the The Memoirs were based directly on the actual diaries of the actual woman Emily Bean Ymirson. Emily Bean died in 1985, but before she died she was an extraordinary anthropologist and criminologist. She kept meticulous journals of all of her exploits, and Valison fictionalized it (to some people’s chagrin, but to general acclaim).
Emily Bean was also the mother of Our Heroine. Our Heroine is, indeed, the heroine of Icelander, although her real name is never given. We learn pretty early on is that Our Heroine’s friend Shirley MacGuffin has been killed. MacGuffin was an aspiring author (whose only published work appears on a bathroom wall). Her final text was meant to be a recreation of Hamlet. Not Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but Hamlet as written by Thomas Kyd. And, indeed, Kyd’s Hamlet predated Shakespeare’s.
There’s also a lot of excitement with The Vanatru. The Vanatru lived underground, and had a serious quarrel with surface dwellers who worked hard at keeping them down. The Queen of the Vanatru is Gerd. She controls the Refurserkir, an inhuman race of fox-shirted spirit warriors who appear literally out of nowhere.
SOUNDTRACK: DANGER MOUSE AND SPARKLEHORSE present: Dark Night of the Soul (2010).
Seems like most things that Danger Mouse touches involve lawsuits. I’m not entirely sure why this disc had such a hard time seeing the light of day. But it is due for a proper release in July. Although by now, surely everyone has obtained a copy of the music, so why would anyone give EMI any money for the disc (since they hid it away in the first place).
The name that is not listed above is David Lynch, who is an important contributor to the project. He creates all the visuals (and the visuals in the book that was the original release format). He also contributed vocals to two tracks on the CD. (His vocals are weird and spacey, just like him…and if you remember his voice from Twin Peaks, just imagine Gordon singing (but with lots of effects).
The rest of the disc is jam packed with interesting singers: Wayne Coyne (from The Flaming Lips), Gruff Rhys (from Super Furry Animals), Jason Lytle (from Grandaddy) on my two favorite tracks, Julian Casablancas (from The Strokes), Black Francis, Iggy Pop, James Mercer (from The Shins), Nina Persson (from The Cardigans), Suzanne Vega, and Vic Chesnutt.
I’m not sure if Danger Mouse and Mark Linkous wrote the music already knowing who the singers were going to be, but musically the tracks work very well. And yet, despite the different sounds by the different singers, the overall tone and mood of the disc is very consistent: processed and scratchy, melodies hidden deep under noises and effects. Even the more “upbeat” songs (James Mercer, Nina Persson) are dark meanderings.
It took me a few listens before I really saw how good this album was. On the surface, it’s a samey sounding disc. But once you dig beneath, there’s some really great melodies, and it’s fascinating how well the songs stay unified yet reflect the individual singers.
EMI is going to have to pull out all the stops to make it a worthy purchase for those of us who have already found the disc. Since The Lynch book was way overpriced for my purchase, (and they surely won’t include it with this CD), they need to include at least a few dozen Lynch photos (and more). And with a list price of $19 (NINETEEN!) and an Amazon price of $15, the disc should clean your house and improve your wireless connection too.
[READ: June 1, 2010] Bloom County Vol. 1
Boy, did I ever love Bloom County. Back in high school I had more drawings of Opus and crew in my locker than anything else. (I used to reproduce the cartoons by hand, I was never one of those “cut out of the paper” people.) And so, there are tons of punch lines that I still remember twenty-five years later.
And yet, despite my fondness for the cartoon (and the fact that I owned (and read many times)) all of the collected books, I was amazed at how much of the early strips I had no memory of, at all. True, some of the really early ones are here for the first time in collected form (according to an interview there are hundreds of comics in collected form for the first time in these volumes). But those early 1980 comics…wha? (more…)
I’ve liked Mark Eitzel since my friend Lar played me “Johnny Mathis’ Feet” back in college. I got some of his solo discs, but by around 2000, I’d more or less given up on him. Someone donated a copy of this solo album to the library, and since we weren’t keeping it, I brought it home.
So I don’t know what he’s been up to since 2000, and this album came as something of a surprise. The first song is quintessential Eitzel: downbeat mellow song with clever lyrics. But after that, it seems like he got his hand on a drum machine and some electronica and just had a field day with it.
The one trend in electronica is to write long songs, and this holds true for Eitzel here. There are a number of songs here that are predominantly simple drums and sound effects. The second song, in fact, has no words: it’s just a rudimentary drum machine which feels a lot longer than its 4:44 total time.
The few simple guitar songs (with electronic backing) sound good, but the thing is that Eitzel is an awesome songwriter, he’s just not such a great dancey songwriter. The electronic experiments aren’t bad, they’re just not very inspired. They may work as an introduction to that type of music for fans of his that never listened to electronica, but beyond that it’s just not that exciting.
Candy Ass is an interesting experiment, but it falls way short of his best work.
[READ: March 8, 2010] “Ask Me If I Care”
No, I really don’t.
I was really rather disappointed in this story. It never really gripped me in an interesting way. And even though the band practice stuff all probably happened, it just feel believable at all. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2003).
How do you follow up the fantastic Soft Bulletin? If you’re The Flaming Lips, you simultaneously pull back and push forward. I often thing of Yoshimi as Bulletin part 2 but that’s really not right or fair. Yoshimi has a more Pink Floyd vibe: it’s quite mellow and folky. But nothing the Lips do can be completely commercial, so you get things in every song that add immensely to the sound, yet prevent it from complete accessibility.
The opening song “Fight Test” begins with an ominous voice saying “The test begins… NOW!!” with loud distorted crashes, and yet it quickly turns into one of their most delicate and catchy songs. The only nod to peculiarity is the watery bass lines that fill the song. It’s a mystery why this song wasn’t huge.
The next track, “One More Robot” is a delicate song reminiscent of Radiohead with the walking bassline and soft vocals. This leads to the fabulous title track “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Ropbots Pt 1.” In which yes, Yoshimi disciplines her body to take on the evil machines. It’s another shoulda-been single, with strumming acoustic guitar and more of that fabulous fat bass. ” Pt 2,” on the other hand is a noisy cacophonous march depicting the fight. It includes Yoshimi P-We from the Boredoms and OOIOO adding appropriate shrieks and screams.
Two more delicate songs follow: “In the Morning of the Magicians” is one of their longer songs and is quite mellow. It also features a very lengthy instrumental section with more of that awesome bass. “Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell” is the most techno sounding song I can think of by the Lips. It seems like maybe that touring work with Beck influenced them a bit.
“Are You a Hypnotist??” is a little louder and plays with the ascending chord progressions that Wayne does so well. An uplifting track, with fun, interesting notes thrown in. “It’s Summertime” has some great rubbery bouncing bass noises in the beginning, and it slowly morphs into a heavenly chorus.
The real highlight is “Do You Realize??” It’ a song that goes from happy to sad to happy all in the space of a few lines. But musically it is uplifting, with choruses and swelling orchestration. I gather this was used for some ads, but I’m just surprised it wasn’t everywhere!
“All We Have is Now” is another delicate song, with gentle verses sung in an impossibly high falsetto. The chorus is the most interesting part, with great bass notes interrupting the reverie. The album ends with a gorgeous instrumental “Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)” which is an apt title (Pavonis Mons being a volcano of Mars) and it sounds quite interstellar.
What’s most notable about this album is that there’s nothing that stands out as peculiar from the rest of the record (except “Yoshimi Pt 2”). It’s a very constant record, mellow and comforting. And yet I’m not going to call it safe, because it’s not. I don’t know if it made as many critical lists as Bulletin, but I know it sold better, and it seems like a really good place to start for latter days Lips.
[READ: February 18, 2009] Never Mind the Pollacks
After reading several Pollack stories in McSweeney’s I discovered that he had written a novel. This novel.
With an awesome title! Most of the awesomeness is purely luck that his name is Pollack (Never Mind the Debraskis doesn’t have the same ring). (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: TXT (투모로우바이투게더) ‘Cat & Dog’ (2019).
Because this book is about cats and dogs, I was going to put “Cats & Dogs” from The Head and The Heart as this song. Bit when I searched for “Cats & Dogs” the first video was for this song. And any band whose name is in a language I can’t read will certainly get posted here.
SOUNDTRACK: DANGER MOUSE AND SPARKLEHORSE present: Dark Night of the Soul (2010).
Seems like most things that Danger Mouse touches involve lawsuits. I’m not entirely sure why this disc had such a hard time seeing the light of day. But it is due for a proper release in July. Although by now, surely everyone has obtained a copy of the music, so why would anyone give EMI any money for the disc (since they hid it away in the first place).
SOUNDTRACK: MARK EITZEL-Candy Ass (2005).
I’ve liked Mark Eitzel since my friend Lar played me “Johnny Mathis’ Feet” back in college. I got some of his solo discs, but by around 2000, I’d more or less given up on him. Someone donated a copy of this solo album to the library, and since we weren’t keeping it, I brought it home.
SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2003).
How do you follow up the fantastic Soft Bulletin? If you’re The Flaming Lips, you simultaneously pull back and push forward. I often thing of Yoshimi as Bulletin part 2 but that’s really not right or fair. Yoshimi has a more Pink Floyd vibe: it’s quite mellow and folky. But nothing the Lips do can be completely commercial, so you get things in every song that add immensely to the sound, yet prevent it from complete accessibility.
I Just Read About That... 