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Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

Alice Munro–“Post and Beam” (New Yorker, December 11, 2000)

Posted in Alexisonfire, Alice Munro, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, City and Colour, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Poetry, Suicide on September 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »

december 11SOUNDTRACK: CITY AND COLOUR-“Strangers” (2019).

a3590330773_16City and Colour is Dallas Green (get it?).  He was part of the rocking band Alexisonfire.  He went solo about fifteen years ago and has settled into the sort of indie folk troubadour life.

His voice has always been gentle, but he seems to have leaned into it even more while he is solo.

“Difficult Love” comes from his soon to be released sixth solo album A Pill for Loneliness.  It’s upbeat with a simple, but catchy melody.  The verse has a great flow (his voice sounds really great) and the chorus pushes it along even more with a lovely falsetto turn on his voice.

The bridge leads to new heights as Green really shows off what his voice can do.

It’s still hard to believe that was one of the guys responsible for a rocking song like “This Could Be Anywhere in the World” (although Dallas was the “clean” singer in Alexisonfire, so it shouldn’t be all that surprising).

[READ: September 25, 2019] “Post and Beam”

Usually I find Alice Munro’s stories to be straightforward and powerful.  This one felt a little convoluted to me.  I had trouble even following the beginning because so many names were introduced in somewhat unusual ways.

The story is about a woman named Lorna.  Lorna is married to Brendan and is talking to her friend Lionel.  Lionel was Brendan’s former student.

It’s confusing because the story starts with Lionel talking about his mother’s death.  Lorna had met Lionel’s mother a few months earlier and she called called Lorna “my son’s belle amie.”  Lorna didn’t know what she was implying and didn’t want to find out.

Lorna told Lionel about her own childhood.  She lived in a house on a farm with her father.  In the neighboring house were her grandmother her aunt and her cousin Polly–who had no father.  Lorna thought that Polly had no father in the way that a manx cat had no tail. Lorna describes her as “more…competent.” (more…)

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Stereolab (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, September 26, 2019)

Posted in Full show video, Philadelphia, PA, Scranton, PA, Stereolab, Union Transfer on September 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 26, 2019] Stereolab

I can still remember going into Ralph’s Record City (R.I.P.) in Scranton and buying a used copy of Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements based on a friend’s recommendation.  I remember thinking that the title made it sound a lot like a stereo test record.  I also remember not understanding the image on the cover as a phonograph needle for quite a while.

I also remember really liking it.

And that started my long time appreciation of Stereolab.   My friend Lar was always updating me about the latest release or re-release or re-issue (which even happened recently with the new reissues of the band’s back catalog).

I started to drift away from them a bit with their last couple of records, and then they more or less broke up.

Nevertheless, it was pretty exciting to hear that they were reuniting for a new tour (and returning to Philadelphia 11 years after their last show in the city.

I really had no idea what to expect, but I grabbed tickets immediately and they quickly sold out. (more…)

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Bitchin Bajas (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, September 26, 2019) [STEREOLAB]

Posted in Bitchin Bajas, Cave, Philadelphia, PA, Stereolab, Sun Ra, Sun Ra Arkestra, Union Transfer on September 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 26, 2019] Bitchin Bajas

I was super excited to see that Stereolab was touring again for the first time in over a decade.  I wondered who they would have open for them.

I never imagined it would be a band called Bitchin Bajas, of whom I had never heard.

The band is a three-piece and is a side-project of Cooper Crane from the band Cave (who I also don’t know).

With a name like Bitchin Bajas, I assumed they’d be a kind of desert punk band, but boy was I wrong about that.

When I walked in, the stage was set with three keyboards.  The band came out rather quietly with little fanfare and sat down. (more…)

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William Trevor–“Traditions” (New Yorker, December 18, 2000)

Posted in Chastity Belt, Death, Drinking, Huh?, Humiliation, Jackdaws, New Yorker, Set at School, Short Story, William Trevor on September 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

york200SOUNDTRACK: CHASTITY BELT-“Ann’s Jam,” “Elena” and “Drown” (2019)

chazzyWhen Chastity Belt first arrived they posted some gnarly band photos and wre pretty aggressive musically.  Their No Regerts album was brash.  Jagged music, pointed lyrics and rather harsh vocals.

Over the course of five years they have mellowed out quite a bit.  Not necessarily lyrically, although there is some of that, but musically it’s almost a different band. Their guitars are tastefully echoed and the vocals are really pretty and delicate.

The music on these three tracks (the only ones streaming on bandcamp) is practically shoegazey with the hazy vocals and ringing guitars.

There’s some really nice harmonies on “Elena”–and when the two distinct vocals lines intertwine, it sounds great.

“Drown” opens with a really catchy guitar part–it’s a bit faster and sounds a little more like their last two albums, but continuing with the softer vocals.

The only problem with these songs is that they tend to lack a bit of the dynamics that their earlier songs had.  We don’t want them to be too chaste, after all.

[READ: September 20, 2019] “Traditions”

This story is about an English school.  It opens with seven boys: Hambrose, Forrogale, Accrington, Olivier, Macluse, Newcombe and Napier.  Each boy has discovered that his tame jackdaw–birds they had taught to talk (as well as a jackdaw can)–had been killed.

The boys suspect Leggett.  Although Olivier believes it is one of the “girls,” one of the maids who lived in the nearby village and attended to the boys.

Despite the birds, they must go on with their day.  This included Olivier going before the headmaster.  The headmaster was disappointed because Olivier had failed to come up to scratch in any of the sciences he was studying.  When the headmaster asked if Olivier had ambitions in that direction, he had to admit that no, he was just curious about the sciences.

The headmaster replied

You indulged a curiosity.  You indulged yourself.  That can be dangerous.

But when Olivier offered to drop out of science, the headmaster said that would be dangerous too.

Olivier quickly forgot about that and resumed thinking about the dead birds.  He was more convinced than every that it was a girl.  Although the other boys had found Leggett and beat him up (and then didn’t think he had done it).

There had been other traditions of strange things happening at the school–bells ringing in the night, things going missing.  But no one was ever caught.

Olivier was certain it was a particular girl, a maid who was no longer a girl, really.  It seemed like she was watching him as well.

No one–no previous headmaster–knows that this maid, who had been with the school for a long time, had been part of a tradition at the school “supplying to boys who now were men, a service that had entered the unofficial annals.”

I have to assume this is an excerpt from a novel, because as a short story it was very unsatisfying.  So many characters introduced, the whole science thing, and so much unspoken about the maids.  But it doesn’t appear to be from the novel he published in 2002.  So I don’t know what to think.

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Pinegrove (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, September 25, 2019)

Posted in House of Independents, Montclair, NJ, Philadelphia, PA, Pinegrove, Union Transfer on September 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 25, 2019] Pinegrove

This is the third time I have seen Pinegrove.  I saw them in 2017 and had plans to see them two more times by the end of the year.  But they cancelled their shows and took a hiatus.  They came back this year and I was lucky enough to catch one of their first shows back down in Asbury Park.

Despite having seen them just a few months earlier, I felt somewhat unsatisfied about that HoI show.  Not sure what it was–maybe because I was off to the side too far, or what.  I mean the band sounded great that night.  But I felt like I needed one more show from them, and tonight’s show scratched that itch.

Even though they played pretty much the same set, something about this show felt complete.

Maybe it was that they upgraded from a curtain with their logo of two boxes on it to neon lights in the shape of two boxes.

Or maybe it was that there six people on stage instead of five? (more…)

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Boyscott (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, September 25, 2019) [PINEGROVE]

Posted in Boyscott, Montclair, NJ, Philadelphia, PA, Pinegrove, Slumbers, Super Low, Union Transfer on September 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 25, 2019] Boyscott

I hadn’t heard of Boyscott before this tour either.

It turns out that the Scott of Boyscott [Scott Hermo Jr] grew up on the same street in Montclair as Evan Stephens Hall (they’re about six years apart).  I don’t know if that’s why they were chosen to play these local dates, but whatever the reason, it was great to have them open for Pinegrove.

It’s surprisingly hard to find out who was on stage with them.  The live band was a five piece, although their album was recorded by a three-piece.  Names associated with the band include: Emma Willer of Slumbers on guitar, John Lewandowski of Super Low on drums, Ellen McGirk (keys and vocals who I am pretty sure was not there), and bassist Noah Miller.  There was also someone with one name on a second guitar and percussion.

They played same light indie-pop.  What I really liked about the band was that none of the songs were simple verse chorus verse. Each one had some interesting middle part or new section or even just an unexpected stop mid-song.

By the second or third song I was really enjoying their set. (more…)

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Derek Ted (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, September 25, 2019) [PINEGROVE]

Posted in Boyscott, Derek Ted, Philadelphia, PA, Pinegrove, Union Transfer on September 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 25, 2019] Derek Ted

I had never heard of Derek Ted when it was announced that he was opening for Pinegrove (along with Boyscott).

I arrived plenty early to get to Pinegrove because the show started at 7:30 and a lot of people didn’t show up until 8.  So I was right up font when Derek Ted started.  He came out and it was just him and his guitar.

He played the first song and it was fine.  I didn’t love his voice but I thought the melody and lyrics were really nice.

After that first song, the rest of the band came out–another guitar, drums and bass.  I can’t find any band member names online, but they added some amazing components to the music as you can hear in “Waves on the Lake.”

The drums were minimal and yet relatively complex–unexpected time changes and a bunch of song that ended abruptly with a smacking snare drum. (more…)

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Ricky Jay–“The Story of Dice” (New Yorker, December 11, 2000)

Posted in Acid Mothers Temple, Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Dice, Essays, Gambling, Kawabata Makoto, New Yorker, Okumura Mondo, Ricky Jay, Rosamund Purcell, Steve Hillage, Tangerine Dream on September 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

december 11SOUNDTRACK: KAWABATA MAKOTO [河端一]-Astro Love & Infinite Kisses (2017).

Kawabata Makoto [河端一] is the guitarist and mastermind behind Acid Mothers Temple. The band is hugely prolific. But he still had time to record solo albums. Often times without any guitar.

This was a Kawabata solo LP, now available on bandcamp.

Astro Love is the first widely available solo release in several years from Kawabata, emerging from a period of relative quiet with this blockbuster Krautrock-flavored epic. On the whole, this a lovely and impressionistic record, the other side of Makoto’s outrageous works with Acid Mothers’ Temple. Taking cues from classics of the genre like Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra and Steve Hillage’s Rainbow Dome Music.  Cover by Japanese youth art sensation Okumura Mondo!

“Dos Nurages” (40:30) is the centerpiece of the record, a 41 minute hypnotic epic, with echoplex’d guitar anchoring a stream of expertly done glissando. It is a fast, pulsing Krautrock experience with a swirling drone and fast repeated notes on the echoing guitar.  The waves of sound fade in and out leaving just the echoing guitar and then replacing it with more of the same.

“Astro Love & Infinite Kisses” (17:41) is a darker drone, in the traditions of Kawabata’s INUI series of releases for VHF. Scraping sounds and pizzicato string melodies converge over the drone.  This melody runs throughout the song as the backing drones grow bigger and louder.  These drone progressions add a lot of tension.

“Woman From Dream Island” (18:22) finishes the record with a thick buzz of tamboura overlaid with trippy backwards guitar, before giving way to a gentle finger-picked acoustic coda.  The drone sounds like a sitar or a hurdy gurdy.  There also seems to be a kind of strummed sitar over the top.  At 13 minutes a lovely pizzicato melody is added on top.

This is certainly one of the less harsh solo creations that Kawabata has unveiled.

[READ: September 10, 2019] “The Story of Dice”

I haven’t read a lot by Ricky Jay.  I had heard of him just before he died and I’d like to see more of what he has done.  Especially if they are as interesting as this.

Jay has a book out called Dice: Deception, Fate & Rotten Luck.  It has pictures by Rosamund Purcell.  The book is 64 pages.  I have to wonder, since the book is full of lavish photos, if this essay is the entirety of the book.

This essays is divided into parts, with each small section focusing on a different aspect of the history of dice–which is more interesting than you might expect.

In “Dice in a Bottle” he talks about a pair of dice found in the Thames.  They were in a waterproof cage dating from the 15th century.  They had been drilled and weighted with quicksilver to the throwers advantage.  There were also “high men” dice that only had a 4, 5 and 6 and “low men” that only had a 1, 2 and 3. They were clearly tossed into the river by a hustler trying to avoid detection. (more…)

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Ann Beattie-“The Women of This World” (New Yorker, November 20, 2000)

Posted in Ann Beattie, Artists, Donald Sutherland, Lou Reed, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story, Thanksgiving, Transgender, Violence on September 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »

20000 SOUNDTRACK: LOU REED-“A Gift” (1976).

reedThis “soft rock” song features a slow guitar song with shuffle beat as Reed speaks his mind.

There’s not a lot to the lyric (most of which are repeated a few times), but they are either really funny or really obnoxious depending on your take:

I’m just a gift to the women of this world
…
Responsibility sits so hard on my shoulder
Like a good wine, I’m better as I grow older, and now –
I’m just a gift to the women of this world
It’s hard to settle for second best
After you’ve had me, you know that you’ve had the best
And now you know that– I’m just a gift to the women of this world.

This song comes from his 1975 album Coney Island Baby. Apparently, many of the album’s songs were inspired by and dedicated to Reed’s girlfriend and muse at the time, a trans woman named Rachel Humphreys.  Well done Lou!

[READ: September 10, 2019] “The Women of This World”

Dale and Nelson are married and are living in a house while its owners, a philosophy professor and his wife, are in Munich until next year.  They chose this place away from it all because Nelson is writing a book.

It’s Thanksgiving and they are hosting Nelson’s stepfather, Jerome, and Jerome’s new girlfriend Brenda.

They did not come on Thanksgiving day became Jerome’s ex-wife (Nelsons mother), Didi was coming on Thanksgiving and they’d rather not see each other.

Nelson loved Jerome and felt indebted to him for arriving when Nelson was five and saving him from the life that Didi has planned for him.  Nelson admired Jerome and they still got along very well. (more…)

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Thomas McGuane–“Wide Spot” (New Yorker, September 23, 2019)

Posted in Berlin, New Yorker, Political Humor, Politicians, Reunion, Short Story, Thomas McGuane on September 23, 2019| Leave a Comment »

923SOUNDTRACK: BERLIN-Information (1980).

berlWho knew that Berlin made an album without Terri Nunn?  Back in 1980, Terri Nunn had sung with Berlin and had even released a couple of singles with them.  Then she decided to try out acting.  The replaced her with Virginia Macolino.

This debut album is very new wave with a mild punk edge.  Their music is all synth but with a lot of jagged edges.

Terri Nunn’s voice is pretty distinctive, but Macolino sings in that same range.  She adds in a squeaky falsetto and an occasional Valley Girl twang.

Given the really smooth, polished sound of their later albums (“Take My Breath Away”), this album is really jagged feeling.  The synth sounds they chose are often weird and mechanical.  And Macolino sings in a distinctive robotic way.  There’s also a lot of processed vocals (the men I assume) adding even more of a technological bent.

It would be interesting to see where they would have gone with this style in mind.  But they went a bit more poppy a bit slicker and they brought Terri Nunn back.  The rest is 80s history.

[READ: September 20, 2019] “Wide Spot”

I really enjoyed the way this brief story unfolded.

The narrator is a local politician.  He tours local small towns to make sure he gets people to vote.  He stops in at Wide Spot, which was the county seat.  It was once a slightly less run down place.

When he was younger, the narrator had been in a band called the Daft.  They always ended their little tours in Wide Spot.  He wasn’t a very good keyboard player and the lead singer of the band, Calum had gone to L.A. to seek his fortunes solo.

He was in Wide Spot looking for Cornel Bowen, a donor who he wanted to touch base with.  Although Cornel proves to be less than helpful, he does reveal that Calum is still in town. (more…)

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