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Archive for the ‘Jason Vieaux’ Category

Doug TenNapel–Tommysaurus Rex (2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Death, Dinosaurs, Dogs, Doug TenNapel, Fantasy, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jason Vieaux, Pallbearer, Short Books, Supernatural, Tiny Desk Concert, Yolanda Kondonassis on June 25, 2015| Leave a Comment »

rexSOUNDTRACK: JASON VIEAUX AND YOLANDA KONDONASSIS-Tiny Desk Concert #443 (May 22, 2015).

yolandaTypically, the Tiny Desk doesn’t have performers back after they have played once.  But occasional exceptions are made, like when performers who played solo come back as a duo.  Like this.

Jason Vieuax was one of the first 20 people to play the Tiny Desk and Yolanda Kondonassis played back in 2010.  And here they are touring as a duo, which really helps to accentuate both of their skills.  And their music is beautiful together.

Vieuax is an amazing classical guitarist.  And Kondonassis plays an amazing harp that is more about singular notes than trills and “heavenly” sounds.  And in these songs, they work together doing harmony runs and fills–both instruments are lead instruments.

Apparently there aren’t very many pieces written for the combination of harp and guitar.  Kondonassis explains the origins of the Hovhaness piece (which gives some lovely context).

Vieaux explains the origins of the two movements of the Piejo suite.

The first piece is sweet, while the second one is a little more aggressive (but still lovely).  And the third one features some cool riffs and chords (especially on guitar) and percussion done on the instruments.

The three songs they play are

  • Gary Schocker: “Elysian” (from Hypnotized)
  • Alan Hovhaness: Fuga: Allegro – Andante grazioso, Canon: Allegro (from Sonata for Harp and Guitar, “Spirit of Trees”)
  • Máximo Diego Pujol: Vals, Candombe (from Suite mágica)

The pieces are familiar and yet quite different.  And 456+it is much fun to watch their fingers fly around their instruments.

[READ: January 24, 2015] Tommysaurus Rex

I brought this book home for Clark to read.  I wasnt going to read it myself but then I saw that I had read a book by TenNapel before and liked it.

But I did not care for this one.  Perhaps it was because it was marketed in my library as a kids book but I thought it was just too violent or something–the story turned me off.

Perhaps it was just that the story opens with the main character’s dog getting hit by a car and dying.  I mean, who needs that?  And the cover looks so fun, too. (more…)

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Ed Ruscha–“Pure Bleach” (New Yorker, October 14, 2013)

Posted in Ed Ruscha, Essays, Francisco Tarrega, Jason Vieaux, Johann Sebastian Bach, Maximo Diego Pujol, New Yorker, Tiny Desk Concert, Work on January 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_10_14_13McCall.inddSOUNDTRACK: JASON VIEAUX-Tiny Desk Concert #17 (June 15, 2009).

viaeuxJason Vieaux is the first to break the mold of folk singers playing the Tiny Desk.  Vieaux is a classical guitarist.  I don’t know a lot about classical guitar, but when it’s good I know it’s gorgeous.  And man, is this gorgeous.

I don’t know anything about Vieaux, but in the little blurb, they say that in 2002 they invited him to spend a week as a young-artist-in-residence on their classical-music program Performance Today.

I would have been grossed out by his long fingernail if they hadn’t pointed out that he glues a slice of a ping-pong ball to the underside of his right thumbnail as a kind of extended, “press-on nail” guitar pick.

He plays 3 songs and they are all simply stunning.

Bach: Prelude (from Prelude, Fugue and Allegro, BWV 998)

Maximo Diego Pujol: Candombe en Mi

Francisco Tarrega: Capricho Arabe

You can visit the NPR site to hear about the ping pong ball thing, and you can watch the video below.

[READ: January 7, 2014] “Pure Bleach”

This New Yorker has several small essays about work.  They are primarily from people who I wasn’t familiar with–only Amy Poehler saved the five from being unread.  When after reading all of them I enjoyed them enough to include them all here.

The pieces are labelled under “Work for Hire” and each talks about a humiliating job.

This final installment was the shortest.  Ruscha is an artist, whose name sounds familiar to me–he worked in pop art. His lame job was working in a laundromat “mixing bleach and water together in brown glass bottles for the customers to use”  If you didn’t know better you would say, that sounds like an old job, and you’d be right–that job existed in 1951.  Geez.  He made 50 cents an hour. (more…)

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