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Archive for the ‘Pg. 99’ Category

Des Ark (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, October 3, 2019) [TEAM DRESCH]

Posted in Des Ark, Pg. 99, Philadelphia, PA, Pinkwash, Screaming Females, Team Dresch, Union Transfer, Waxahatchee, WXDU 88.7 FM--Durham North Carolina on October 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 3, 2019] Des Ark

I had never heard of Des Ark.  This show was a double bill of Screaming Females and Team Dresch and I had kind of forgotten there was another opening act.  So I didn’t look into them at all.

I was amused when the drummer came out and was texting on his phone before their set began.

Turns out that drummer is Ashley Arnwine who I had seen play with Waxahatchee (that band was fantastic, too).  He is also in the band Pinkwash.

The other two guys in the band were brothers Chris Taylor and Mike Taylor who were both in Pg. 99.

But these three guys are just with the band for this short (5 day) tour.

Des Ark is really the creation of singer/guitarist Aimee Argote.  Des Ark has three albums out Loose Lips Sink Ships (2005), Battle of the Beards (2007) and Don’t Rock the Boat, Sink the Fucker (2011).   In between these she released three live albums from Durham, North Carolina radio station WXDU: WXDU v. 1 (2006); WXDU v.2 (2007) and Live at WXDU Vol. 3 (2013).  On these she plays new songs which may or may not make the next record.

Note the dates. That last WXDU record was from 2013.  And, it turns out that Des Ark hasn’t played live (despite being amazing) for over three years.  Why is that?

 because main member Aimee Argote quit music for the past three years. She posted a lengthy statement explaining on her hiatus on Instagram, which reads in part: “I left music because I felt unsafe, exhausted, unsupported, poor as shit, and my body was super, SUPER fucking broken. I had no plan, no health insurance (w/ chronic health issues), no stability, and I knew I would never have consistency in my life or in my relationships if I was going to keep touring as much as it would take for me to make a [pretty shitty] living.” She also later added, “Being talented isn’t enough. It simply isn’t enough to keep me or others safe in an industry that tries to destroy women, POC, and queers at every turn.”

But I didn’t know anything about this when Aimee came out on stage and started playing and singing. (more…)

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Simon Rich–“I Love Girl” (New Yorker, December 17, 2012)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Anachronisms, Art, Death, Funny (ha ha), New Yorker, Pg. 99, Sex, Short Story, Simon Rich, Violence on December 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_12_17_12Sorel.inddSOUNDTRACK: PG. 99 Document #8 (2005).

doc8In yesterday’s post I talked about a pg. 99 concert in which they played the entirety of this album.  Since the album is available for streaming (and download) at Robotic Empire, I figured I’d give it a real listen.

While there’s no mistaking that this is the same band, I was surprised by just how nuanced this recording proved to be.  That almost seems like a joke because it is a blistering punishing punk album, but there are a lot of moments where the band is quiet and there’s only one instrument playing, or when you can actually hear lyrics.

The disc opens with a sampled quote about “Playing whatever you want as sloppy as you want.  As long as it’s good and has passion.”  This album is not sloppy at all–it’ s very noisy and chaotic, but the chops are there–the band is very precise.  I also like the unusual guitar sounds in “Your Face is a Rape Scene.”  “The Hollowed Out Chest of a Dead Horse” sounds much better on album than live–you can really hear all of the diverse parts and the interesting tones that the lack of noise produces.  And the ending is really quite beautiful (maybe if it has been in the middle it could have broken up some of the pummeling).

There are two more songs on the album than were played live.  In the concert, the singer said  that they only learned  those seven songs, which may well be true.  I love the title of the one extra track, “The Lonesome Waltz of Leonard Cohen.”  The Final Track, “The List (FILTH)” has a completely different recording style and sound, so I assume it must be some kind of bonus track.  Indeed, some research tells me that these are both bonus tracks, which makes sense as the end of “Horse” does sound like an album ender.

[READ: December 13, 2012] “I Love Girl”

I’ve said before that I really like Simon Rich’s super short jokes.  And I’m a little less enamored of his longer jokes.  This one was three pages and there was a lot to like about it, but something that kind of bugged me as well.

This “story” is about Oog.  He’s a caveman (duh) and he speaks like a caveman (which mostly means leaving the word “a” out before nouns).  Oog is Rock Thrower.  Oog is not too smart–he can’t make words good and although he understands the numbers one and two, he has trouble with three and four.  And forget about five.  But Girl is smart.  And once in school Girl helped him with his math by saying that four was just two twos.  He still doesn’t understand what she meant.

Oog loves Girl.  But Girl belongs to Boog.  Boog is an artist.  He draws pictures of horses and demands respect from everyone.  He also has sex with Girl right in front of everyone. (more…)

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James Stokoe–Wonton Soup (2007)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Canadian Content, Food, James Stokoe, Oni Press, Pg. 99, Pranks, The Future on December 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »

wonton

SOUNDTRACK: PG. 99-Live at The Black Cat, Washington DC, August 31, 2011 (2011).

Ipg99 don’t know anything about pg. 99 but this was a reunion show that they headlined (even though their set is only 25 minutes long).  This concert is the entirety of their album Document #8 (from 2005),   pg. 99 plays noise noise noise so much noise.  It all sounds a bit like a blur with screamed vocals ad thundering drums.  In fact, the drums are really the only thing that lets you know there are tempos and time changes in the songs.  As befits a loud band whose songs you can’t understand, Pg 99 have wonderful song titles like “More Complicated Than a Sci-Fi Flick” (2 minutes long).

There are some distinctly more complicated sections than just hardcore like in “In Love with an Apparition” which has a quiet opening (for about 2 seconds).  And in the middle of the song, there is a much quieter part with just gentle guitar and vocals (although I still cannot make out any lyrics).  “Your Face is a Rape Scene” (no idea if that’s an offensive title or not as I can’t hear the lyrics), starts with a cool rumbling bass solo before being overtaken by the chaos of the band.

The show proves to be kind of funny because the singer is constantly telling the crowd that the show is over (“last number guys” after three songs), they play three songs that last just over a minute each “Life in a Box,” “Ruiner of Life,”  and “We Left as Skeletons.”  Those are followed by the two-minute “Punk Rock in the Wrong Hands,” a kind of call and response of noise.  “Ballad of Circling Vultures” starts off kind of like a ballad, with slow bass notes and feedback that continue for over a minute before the final minute is breakneck hardcore (with apparently everyone screaming something different).

It’s also funny to me how polite the band is–thanking everyone so much for coming and telling everyone to be careful on the way home (the weather was quite bad).  Obviously the band doesn’t want their fans to get hurt, but it’s nice to hear them say so.

The set ends with the surprisingly long “The Hollowed Out Chest of a Dead Horse,” which clock s in at over 6 minutes.  Amid the noise and chaos there are some melodic sections too.  You can hear the whole 26 minute set here.

The whole of Document #8 is streamable here.  It’s not that different from the live set although you can hear lot more of the dynamics there (but really not any lyrics).

[READ: December 12, 2012] Wonton Soup

This graphic novel is billed as a “Space Trucker Opera,” and indeed it kind of is, but it’s more like Iron Chef in Space.

The novel is set in the surprisingly not too distant future when space is colonized, aliens are everywhere and different species intermingle with regularity.  The main characters are James Boyo, a punky/gothy looking guy with really darkly lined eyes (this effect is used quite a lot in more underground comics and although I don’t fully understand it, I do like it) and Deacon Vans, a dreadlocked space truck driver who only has sex on his mind (the age for this book is 13+, which might even be a little young for some of the language in the beginning of the book).

As the story opens, the pair are on a delivery, but Boyo is more interested in finding the perfect Wonton Soup, which is rumored to be at a particular joint out in space.  They prepare the Wontons in the precisely perfect way (stuffing the space chicken’s head tendrils into its body before cooking it).  But Boyo can’t enjoy his Soup because the first bite that he eats contains a metal probe which sends an urgent message from the captain of a ship under attack.  The receiver of the message is the chosen one!

He pushes the beacon to the guy next to him and walks out.  (That cracked me up). (more…)

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Craig Thompson–Habibi (2011)

Posted in Adventure, All Songs Considered, Babies, Circle Takes the Square, Craig Thompson, Death, Disease, Fears, Harper's, Hollywood Squares, Marriage Trouble, Pg. 99, Religion, Sex, Sexism, Threats, Virginity (Loss of), Zadie Smith on September 14, 2012| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CIRCLE TAKES THE SQUARE Live at Black Cat Washington DC, August 31, 2011 (2011).

I had never heard of Circle Takes the Square before seeing the link to this show on NPR (Thank you, Viking!).  I like the band name (Hollywood Squares reference), and couldn’t imagine what they sounded like.

Song titles like “In the Nervous Light of Sunday” and “We’re Sustained by the Corpse of a Fallen Constellation” and even “Non-Objective Portrait of Karma” lead one in many possible directions.  But it turns out that the band is sort of pigeonholed as screamo, a post-hardcore style that allows mostly for screamed vocals.  And yet these guys also incorporate intricate playing, odd time signatures and some beautiful instrumental passages.

Even though the band plays fast, they don’t play only short songs.  The shortest songs run about three minutes but they have two songs that are over 6 minutes, with several different sections.

I listened to this show a few times and I confess I never really got into it.  I liked some of it but I was never fully able to grasp what was going on.  It could have been the recording quality.  Usually NPR shows are crystal clear, but this one was a bit muddy–which may have been intentional from the band as they are pretty raw sounding.  I did like  the split male/female vocals which added a cool depth to the songs.  But mostly I was impressed by the kind and almost sweet attitude of the lead singer.  He was polite and thankful to the audience (thanking them for braving the weather–the show was during Hurricane Irene–thanking them for coming from both far and near and talking about how excited he was about Pg. 99, the headliners.  It’s funny to hear polite thankfulness and then screaming lyrics like: “Embrace the sweet sound of self-destruction.”

I’d like to hear a studio release before passing final judgment, because there was a lot to like here.

[READ: August 29, 2012] Habibi

I saw this book in a review by Zadie Smith in Harper’s a while back.  I didn’t realize at the time that the author was the same person who did the wonderful Blankets.

This book is an amazing piece of art.  And the story is very good too.

So this massive book (almost 700 pages) is the story of  a woman born into a fictional Middle Eastern country called where the Qur’an is studied and women are more or less chattel.  As the story opens Dodola is sold by her father to a wealthy man who becomes her husband.  The scene of her deflowering, while not graphic at all, is very disturbing nonetheless.  She is afraid of this man and cowers in the fear until they gradually start to see each other as human beings.  And although their age difference is substantial (and yes, gross), she learns to appreciate him.

Until he his killed by the king’s men and Dodola is taken away to the king’s palace to be sold as a slave–her hair is tied to another girl’s hair so they cannot escape.

Through a series of events, she does escape, and when she is hiding out she manages to save the life of a black baby named Cham.  She calls him Zam after the Well of Zamzam (Arabic: زمزم‎) in Mecca, the holiest place in Islam.  And while she is only 12, she takes care of this 3-year-old boy and raises him as her own child. (more…)

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