SOUNDTRACK: MERCHANDISE-“Become What You Are” (Field Recordings, April 17, 2014).
I feel like I’ve heard of Merchandise, but I can’t be sure. Especially given their complex history:
Merchandise got its start on the Tampa punk and hardcore scene, then got weirder as artier influences like krautrock took hold. As its sound became harder to pin down, the band inspired an 18-month bidding war between record labels: This year, Merchandise finally signed with 4AD, and adventurous new material has begun to trickle out.
For this Field Recording [Merchandise Sprawls Out In The Sunlight] singer Carson Cox and guitarist Dave Vassalotti — a configuration Cox describes as “some component of Merchandise” — held court for an informal session at Friends & Neighbors,
Before he starts singing a bird goes squawking by, Cox says, “The bird’s on backup vocals.”
As the song starts, it’s acoustic guitar and gentle crooning. Then Vassalotti’s electric guitar powers in. It’s so much louder but the acoustic is perfectly audible–great mixing! For all that build up of punk and krautrock, this proves to be a pretty straightforward folk song with buzzy guitars.
The end builds nicely with the two of them rocking out. With the ending guitar solo, the song wends it way to over 9 minutes long.
Though it usually keeps its songs to reasonable lengths, Merchandise also knows how to sprawl out: Its new single, “Begging for Your Life/In the City Light,” spans a whopping 14 minutes. So it’s no surprise that even a truncated version of the group would be capable of wringing an epic out of such a casual environment.
[READ: June 2018] The Misfortune of Marion Palm
Because I have been trying to empty my drafts folder of all of the New Yorker and Harper’s stories that have been cluttering it for two years, I have not read that many books this year. I’m usually good for 100+ books a year, but this year it will be closer to about 30, if that.
I’ve also read some of these books quite a while ago, so my memory isn’t as fresh as it should be.
I’m not exactly sure why I read this book. The title was intriguing–“misfortune” is a rather compelling noun. Plus the chapters are almost all around 3 pages. But I think it was the very premise that was so fascinating.
Marion Palm is a Brooklyn Heights wife and mother. She works at her children’s (fancy, expensive) school and was a devoted, if suffering wife. But as the book opens, she is on the lam with $40,000 cash in her pockets. She said goodbye to her children but did not say goodbye to her husband.
This is all questionable behavior. What is even more questionable is that she said goodbye to her two girls (aged 8 and 13) in a diner and then ran out on the bill. It was cash only and all of her cash was in her knapsack and she didn’t want her girls to see it. So she left them there. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 