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Archive for the ‘Sloan’ Category

Sloan (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, October 15, 2016)

Posted in Canadian Music, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Philadelphia, PA, Sloan, Television, Underground Arts on October 16, 2016| Leave a Comment »

sloan[ATTENDED: October 15, 2016] Sloan

Back in the early 1990s, I heard Sloan’s “Underwhelmed,” and I loved it.  Such a great song that is still rocking and clever over 20 years later.  Sloan has a tumultuous few years after that, appearing to break up but not, getting signed and then dropped and then settling down and putting out some amazing music over the next 20 or so years which few people outside of Canada heard.

They have released eleven albums and I think that each one gets better and better.  Sloan is touring the 20th Anniversary of One Chord to Another.  There are some great songs on it, although it’s wasn’t my favorite album.  But the point is I have never seen Sloan.  In all the years I’ve been a fan, we’ve never been in the same place at the same time.  So even though I had been to a show the night before and this would make six concerts in twelve days (!), I bought tickets to see one of my favorite underground bands.

Since I knew they were playing all of OCTA, I listened to it a lot before hand and now, after seeing it live, I do like it even more than before. (But seriously if they do a 20th anniversary tour of Between the Bridges in three years…. you couldn’t keep me from that stage).

I’d never been to Underground Arts before.  It is indeed underground.  And it is indeed quite small (about 500 people max).

I arrived pretty early (start time was supposed to be 9:15, but they didn’t go on until 9:30–divas!).  But that meant that I was able to score a spot right behind the guy leaning on the stage.  As they say in Fast Times at Ridgemont High: so close I could scare the band. (more…)

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The Shelters (The Fillmore Philadelphia, June 16, 2016) [GUSTER]

Posted in Guster, Philadelphia, PA, Sloan, Social Distortion, The Beatles, The Doors, The Fillmore Philadelphia, The Shelters, The Smithereens, The Yardbirds on June 16, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 16, 2016] The Shelters

2016-06-16 20.11.09The Shelters opened for Guster.  I hadn’t heard of them before going to the show, so I really didn’t know what to expect from the band.  Sarah and I arrived as they were going on, so by the time we got situated we probably missed two or three songs.

The band paints an interesting visual picture.  On the left side is guitarist Chase Simpson.  He’s got long hair and plays interestingly shaped guitars.  In the middle is guitarist Josh Jove who has slicked back hair and tends to walk to the front of the stage to solo.  On the bass is Jacob Pillot (also slicked back hair) who sort of hangs back but keeps a great rhythm.  And then in the back is drummer Sebastian Harris with long hair (looking a bit like Kurt Cobain) who pounds the hell out of the drums.

Walking into the venue, I’m not sure what song they were playing but it struck me as sounding very L.A. rock (I don’t really know what that means, but I guessed it reminded me of some of the hard rock/metal bands from the 89s/90s).  The song was good and the band was solid, it just didn’t blow me away.  They played another song (both of these were sung by Jove, I believe) that was similarly rocking and enjoyable.

Then they played “Fortune Teller.”  Simpson sang this one and the whole tenor of the band changed.  The song was a bit trippier (whereas Jove has a rocker voice, Simpson has an almost folkie voice).  I loved the song immediately.  And every song after that was really great too. (more…)

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Real Estate (Radio City Music Hall, New York, June 10, 2015) [BELLE AND SEBASTIAN]

Posted in Belle and Sebastian, Death Cab For Cutie, New York City, Radio City Music Hall, Real Estate, Sloan, Stefan Knapp on June 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 10, 2015] Real Estate

relestateWe ordered tickets for Belle and Sebastian months and months ago (probably back in April before Sarah’s birthday).  We had no idea a) they would be playing in Philly as well and b) who the opening act would be.

In Philly the opener was Lucius, a band I like a bit, and who are quite dancey.  But at Radio City, the opener was Real Estate, a jangly pop band who I like better.

Real Estate’s previous album was selected on many 2011 best of lists.  Their new album I think may not be quite as catchy, but it has the same summery vibe.  (And the cover of the new album, Atlas, features Stefan Knapp’s mural that was on Alexander’s department store in Paramus–Real Estate are from Ridgewood, New Jersey, you see). (more…)

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Mark Callanan–“Part of the Main” & Alexander Oliver–“Watching the Cop Show in Bed” (The Walrus, July/August 2014)

Posted in Alexander Oliver, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Death, Disease, Environmentalism, Film & TV, Lou Reed, Mark Callanan, Poetry, Poets, Sloan, The Beach Boys, The Walrus, Violence, Word usage on October 16, 2014| Leave a Comment »

2014-07SOUNDTRACK: SLOAN-Commonwealth [Spade Side–Andrew Scott] (2014).

commonFor Sloan’s 11th album, the four members of the band each wrote the songs of a side.  I originally thought that they recorded all of the music alone, but that seems to be wrong–and would hardly be a Sloan album).  In conjunction with the album, each guy was given a suit of cards (and an actual deck was made as well).  While this doesn’t necessarily mean the album is very different from their others (it still sounds very Sloan), it seems to have given the guys a bit more room to experiment.

The final side of Commonwealth is by drummer Andrew Scott.  Scott has written three singles for Sloan over the years: “500 Up”, “People of the Sky”, and “I’ve Gotta Try.”  But for this album, he has created a 17 minute and 49 second epic called “Forty-Eight Portraits.” This makes it seem like it could be 48 small songs which it isn’t.  But it also isn’t one long song exactly.  There are, by my count 15 sections–although there could be more or fewer depending on how you break it up.

So my demarcations:

  1. The song opens with a dog barking.  There’s complex percussion and a smattering of piano seemingly searching for a melody.
  2. At 3 minutes the first real song proper starts.  We’ll call it “You say you’re going with me.” There’s acoustic guitars and a bouncy melody.  It’s a great song with a neat guitar riff that overlays around 4 minutes in.  But
  3. At 4:23 the song changes dramatically.  It grinds to a slow pensive section, call it the “Don’t ask for a second chance.”  But it doesn’t last long,
  4. At 5:16, the next part jumps in, it’s a bit faster and feels like it could be an extension of the previous section.  Call it the “Do the things I do” section.  It speeds up
  5. At 5:41, to a similar style as the “first song.”  It has a sing along starting “How Does It Feel?”  It’s got one verse before a time signature change and instrumental break.
  6. At 6:40 the next section comes in.  Aggressive guitars and spoken word lyrics “There’s something happening here.”  It also has one of the few uses of the word “fucking” in a Sloan song.
  7. At 7:25 it shifts to a falsetto style and higher pitched guitars.  It’s vaguely Beach Boys-like for a verse “Do you think she loves you?” until
  8. At 7:48 it’s back to a reprise of the “How does it feel” section.
  9. At 8:15 it shifts to a new slow piano section.  This feels like the most fully realized song section of the epic.  “I can’t believe you never told me the truth.”   It leads into a big chorus sounding section (two lines) around 8:40 (“What it is us unsustainable”).  There’s even a repeat of this “verse” and  “chorus” as well.
  10. At 10:26 a new guitar section is introduced.  It works as a transition “You said you’re coming with me.” It morphs
  11. At 10:52 into a very cool slowed down section “I asked for a proper glass.”  And then
  12. At 11:22 the song again returns to the “How did it feel” section.
  13. At 12 minutes the song transitions with a “ba ba ba” and horns which move into the “Sometimes I feel like I’m slipping away” section.  The song feels like it might end at 13 minutes as the last notes seem to ring out.  But
  14. At 13:21, the song rebuilds again with the “inside a cloud” section.  This feels like the final section of the song is built around a similar construct. It’s a guitar riff that introduces a children’s chorus at around the 14 minute mark.  There’s a slow guitar solo and pizzicato strings that keep this section from being to easy, but that guitar riff and children’s section reunite the end which concludes with the spoken “W.W.L.R.D.?” (which I assume the L.R. refers to Lou Reed).
  15. At 16 minutes, the chaos of the beginning returns with a dog bark, but the concluding riff is strong and seems to really draw out the end.

I really haven’t listened to the lyrics that carefully to know exactly what’s going on, but I really enjoy the “choruses.”  While a 17 minute song is not everyone’s cup of tea, there are so many parts and so many interesting and catchy sections, that it feels like a whole collection of short songs rather than one long song.  It’s a cool experiment and one that I find myself singling out as I try to parse it a bit more.

[READ: October 11, 2014] “Part of the Main” and “Watching the Cop Show in Bed”

The Walrus’ summer reading issue presents three stories and two poems in which: “The Walrus presents fresh takes on old crimes.”  Each story is about a crime of some kind, but seemed from an unexpected way.  I rather enjoyed the way the writers played around with the crime genre to make them something very different.  These were two poems.

I’ve don’t normally review the poetry in The Walrus, but since I had four sides and only three stories it seemed worthwhile to throw the two poems in as well 9especially since the finally song was so unusual).

The first one “Part of the Main” is written with wonderfully evocative language as it talks about something so base.

The first stanza talks about the inevitability of the tide, of life.  With beautiful language like: “the contours of the and effaced by the saintly patience of the tide.”  But the second stanza shifts gears.  In it, the narrator says that you can show him dire things on the television: “bloated bellies…bomb blasts” and he will weep and clench his fists “but otherwise do nothing.”  It is sadly an uncomfortably relatable attitude. (more…)

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Jessica Grant–“Brute” (The Walrus, July/August 2014)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Death, Dogs, Jessica Grant, Short Story, Sloan, The Walrus, Violence on October 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »

2014-07SOUNDTRACK: SLOAN-Commonwealth [Shamrock Side–Patrick Pentland] (2014).

commonFor Sloan’s 11th album, the four members of the band each wrote the songs of a side.  I originally thought that they recorded all of the music alone, but that seems to be wrong–and would hardly be a Sloan album).  In conjunction with the album, each guy was given a suit of cards (and an actual deck was made as well).  While this doesn’t necessarily mean the album is very different from their others (it still sounds very Sloan), it seems to have given the guys a bit more room to experiment.

I’ve always had trouble telling whose songs are whose in Sloan, primarily because they all write such different songs all the time.  But also because their voices aren’t radically distinct.

According to the CBC website, Patrick Pentland is responsible for some of the band’s biggest hit songs, including “The Good in Everyone,” “Everything You’ve Done Wrong” and “Money City Maniacs.”

Pentland only wrote four songs for his side.  And none of them are especially long.  Overall his songs are heavier fuzzier and rockier.

“13 (Under a Bad Sign)” is a heavy rocker at only two minutes.  Even though it’s the same length as Murphy’s also heavy “Get Out” it just rocks a lot harder.  It also opens with a bass–one of the few songs on the album that does so.  It’s a big loud rocking riff.  “Take It Easy” is even noisier.  The guitars feedback as the bass propels along.  It’s a simple song, with a simple heavy chord structure, and it has a simple catchy chorus.  Good rocking Sloan.

“What’s Inside” slows things down a bit—it has a familiar bass line and swirling guitars.  There’s lots of echo on this song, especially in the chorus which seems almost shoegazey.  It’s probably my least favorite song on the album because of the way it kind of meanders–it rather slows the momentum of the disc.  But his final song, “Keep Swinging (Downtown)” totally redeems it, with a super catchy classic rock sound classic.  It has a great got sing along chorus.  This could easily be a huge single and a live concert favorite.  It’s 3 and a half minutes, but nearly the last minute is an extended outro with a great pretty acoustic guitar riff.

For only four songs, Pentland makes a huge statement.

[READ: October 11, 2014] “Brute”

The Walrus’ summer reading issue presents three stories and two poems in which: “The Walrus presents fresh takes on old crimes.”  Each story is about a crime of some kind, but seemed from an unexpected way.  I rather enjoyed the way the writers played around with the crime genre to make them something very different.  This story is about murder.

Of the three stories I liked this story the least.  Not because it from the point of view of a dog–that part I liked.  In fact I enjoyed a lot of details in the story–like that there was a character named Grassy Noel, that the narrator believes all golden labs have a Scottish accent and that the narrator speaks as if he is not a dog.

First we learn about Big Cy’s (the narrator) history.  He used to hang around the bus station grubbing for food.

Then he witnessed a Lab rescue a baby and saw that dog praised and held high.  He wants to know:

Who is better. The dog who is … naturally good or the one who struggles to be good. (more…)

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Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer–“Care and Feeding of the Amish” (The Walrus, July/August 2014)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, Religion, Short Story, Sloan, The Walrus on October 14, 2014| Leave a Comment »

2014-07SOUNDTRACK: SLOAN-Commonwealth [Heart Side–Chris Murphy] (2014).

commonFor Sloan’s 11th album, the four members of the band each wrote the songs of a side.  I originally thought that they recorded all of the music alone, but that seems to be wrong–and would hardly be a Sloan album).  In conjunction with the album, each guy was given a suit of cards (and an actual deck was made as well).  While this doesn’t necessarily mean the album is very different from their others (it still sounds very Sloan), it seems to have given the guys a bit more room to experiment.

I’ve always had trouble telling whose songs are whose in Sloan, primarily because they all write such different songs all the time.  But also because their voices aren’t radically distinct.  According to Wikipedia, Murphy has written several Sloan songs that have been released as singles, including “Underwhelmed” from the album Smeared, “Coax Me” from Twice Removed, “G Turns to D” from One Chord to Another, “She Says What She Means” from Navy Blues, “The Other Man” from Pretty Together, and “The Rest of My Life” from Action Pact.

 Murphy, like Ferguson writes some really catchy songs here.  They are no connected like Ferguson’s though, and they feel more like discrete songs.  “Carried Away” is another amazingly catchy song that I get stuck in my head for hours.  The song opens with a full sound including strings. The verses are slow. But the chorus just kicks in catchy and easy to sing along with this great line: “She carried on buit she got carried away…”

“So Far So Good” is a slow piano ballad. The chorus swells in a big classic-rock-with-piano way and is also catchy.  “Get Out” is a short rocker, under 2 minutes.  It comes in, rocks hard and gets out. “Misty’s Beside Herself” is another song with an infectious chorus.  It’s a slow ballad, but with a big powerful chorus full of harmonies. It’s really pretty. “You Don’t Need Excuses to Be Good” has rawer guitar sound and sounds a bit more like older Sloan. Although it’s not as catchy as the other songs, there’s something about the sound (how different it is from the other songs) that really makes it stand out (that guitar solo s pretty great too).

Like Ferguson, Murphy knows how to write great catchy songs, and these five songs really showcase his strengths as a writer.

[READ: October 11, 2014] “Care and Feeding of the Amish”

The Walrus‘ summer reading issue presents three stories and two poems in which: “The Walrus presents fresh takes on old crimes.”  Each story is about a crime of some kind, but seemed from an unexpected way.  I rather enjoyed the way the writers played around with the crime genre to make them something very different.  This story is about kidnapping.

I’ve enjoyed Kuitenbouwer’s peculiar vantage point in a number of stories before.  Since this was a “crime” story I was curious about what this title could possibly have to do with a crime.  And then it’s laid out–a bunch of kids in a Montessori class (who are camping out in the woods) are lying in await for an Amish buggy to come by.  (While waiting for the ambush one of them farts, which really sets the tone for the story: “The fart hovered at nose level as the nostalgic clop of horses sounded and a decision became necessary”).

And then the decision is made.  Becky ran out into the street with a stick which made the buggy driver stop.  While Becky was asking him how many Amish it took to change a light bulb, the rest of her class snuck behind the buggy and grabbed the buggy’s little boy occupant.  She then frightened the horses and the buggy took off–with the driver unaware of the kidnapping. (more…)

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Stephen Marche–“Ultrasound” (The Walrus, July/August 2014)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Sex, Short Story, Sloan, Stephen Marche, The Walrus, Violence on October 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »

2014-07SOUNDTRACK: SLOAN-Commonwealth [Diamond Side–Jay Ferguson] (2014).

 commonFor Sloan’s 11th album, the four members of the band each wrote the songs of a side.  I originally thought that they recorded all of the music alone, but that seems to be wrong–and would hardly be a Sloan album).  In conjunction with the album, each guy was given a suit of cards (and an actual deck was made as well).  While this doesn’t necessarily mean the album is very different from their others (it still sounds very Sloan), it seems to have given the guys a bit more room to experiment.

I’ve always had trouble telling whose songs are whose in Sloan, primarily because they all write such different songs all the time.  But also because their voices aren’t radically distinct.  According to Wikipedia, Ferguson’s more famous songs are: “I Hate My Generation” from the album Twice Removed, “The Lines You Amend” from One Chord to Another, “Who Taught You to Live Like That?” from the album Never Hear the End of It, and “Witch’s Wand” from Parallel Play.

Jay Ferguson has the more falsetto’s/delicate voice of the bunch.  He writes five songs that all works as kind of a suite.

“We’ve Come This Far,” opens the disc as a minute and a half piano intro.  It blends right into “You’ve Got a Lot on Your Mind” one of several super catchy songs on this record. The verses are gentle with an acoustic guitar playing along with Ferguson’s singing.  It’s a simple song with a great sing along chorus (and even a long Yeah- h- h ).   “Three Sisters” also starts with a piano (and reminds me of Twin Peaks theme in tone).  It is slower than the other songs, which suits Ferguson’s voice very well.  I enjoyed this lyrics which plays to the album art: “I Played a diamond where her heart should land. She recognized the tune but not the band.”  The mellow song has a cool buzzy guitar solo laid over the top.

And It jumps right into the much faster “Cleopatra” which is a simple (and again catchy) track with a boppy “talk to ya later” bridge. The piano and guitar solos are quiet affairs which play against the type of song and really showcase the Ferguson’s songwriting skills.  “Neither Here Not There” opens with, in sequence: a gentle organ, a quiet electric guitar riff and then a 12 string guitar  (not bad for 20 seconds). The song is barely 2 minutes long and is pretty ballad.

It’s a really pretty song cycle and shows of the kinds of songs that Sloan has been doing so well for so many years.

[READ: October 11, 2014] “Ultrasound”

The Walrus’ summer reading issue presents three stories and two poems in which: “The Walrus presents fresh takes on old crimes.”  Each story is about a crime of some kind, but seemed from an unexpected way.  I rather enjoyed the way the writers played around with the crime genre to make them something very different.  This story is about rape.

I’ve mentioned before that I feel kind of hit or miss about Stephen Marche’s short stories.  But I loved this one.

I was a little concerned at first because of the very cold and distant way it began: “On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 representing “of no interest to me” and 10 representing “of maximum interest to me,” the rapes in my neighbourhood rated a 2.3.”

It’s a cold way to open a story.  But the narrator is not finished with his detached tone.  Indeed, he looks at everything in this detached way–on scales of 1-10 or in percentages.  He shares the same outlook as the protagonist of American Psycho, but this story is not about a psycho, just about a person who is exceedingly rational.

And it is a love story too (sort of).  We learn that he dated Catherine Anne Doran and he rates his time with her at 9.3 out of 10.  But by the end of the story something changed.  It wasn’t how he felt about her, it as something intangible.  Thus we learn the problem with the narrator: “Despite this high level of personal significance, the measurable changes our relationship produced were negligible. The numbers were the same, but everything changed. This is what I fail to understand.” (more…)

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Colm Tóibín–“Stories” (New Yorker, June 9 & 16, 2014)

Posted in Colm Tóibín, Destroy Tomorrow 666, Essays, Funny (ha ha), History, LGBTQ, New Yorker, Patrick Pentland, Romance, Sloan on September 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »

jun9SOUNDTRACK: DESTROY TOMORROW 666-“Distortasaur” (2005?).

6666Destroy Tomorrow 666 is a DJ project from Sloan’s Patrick Pentland.  I had never heard of it until reading about him recently (Sloan has a new album out).  It is Pentland’s Alternative / Electro / Punk outlet that he’s been doing since 2005.

Pentland is known for writing gorgeous pop songs with wonderful harmonies.  But he grew up listening to hardcore punk, so his musical tastes are all over the place.  This track (I love the name) is, like the others here, a distorted fuzzy “dance” song that is all instrumental and not poppy at all.

While I’ll stick with Sloan, I imagine this was a lot of fun to whip together.  And yes, I think it’s very good dark dance music.  Although surely if he was going to use 666 he could have turned Pentland into Pentagram.

You can check it out at ReverbNation.

[READ: June 17, 2014] “Stories”

This year’s Summer Fiction issue of the New Yorker was subtitled Love Stories.  In addition to the two graphic stories, we have a series of five personal essays which fall under the heading of “My Old Flame.”  I liked that all five writers have slight variations in how they deal with this topic.

Colm Tóibín is a prolific writer whom I know very little about.

In this essay, Tóibín flashes back to 1978 when he was 23 and living in Barcelona.  He had been there for a few months when he heard about a cheap charter flight back to Ireland.  So he packed up and got out of Barcelona and returned to his home.

He often wonders what would have happened had he stayed in Spain.  He most likely would have stayed with the guy he was seeing, spending days on the beach and nights in the boy’s apartment in the city.  He even thinks he might never have gone home.

After he left, they kept in touch for a time, then inevitably, they lost touch.  (more…)

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Gordon Korman–Flashpoint [The 39 Clues: Unstoppable: Book Four] (2014)

Posted in Adventure, Aphex Twin, Death, Fears, Gordon Korman, Greed, History, Kiss, Pink Floyd, Romance, Short Books, Sloan, Threats, Travel, Violence on September 5, 2014| 1 Comment »

39unstopSOUNDTRACK: SLOAN-“Get Out” (2014).

Sloan_CommonwealthSloan has a new album coming out next week.  It is currently streaming on Picthfork.  The album is like a small version of the Kiss solo albums (except that there is only one album) or like Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma (because it’s a double album and one side is kinda crazy). Each member of the band has written the songs for a side.  The imagery for the disc is a deck of playing card, and each member gets a suit:  Diamond (Jay Ferguson); Heart (Chris Murphy);  Shamrock (Patrick Pentland); Spade (Andrew Scott).  Even though I am a big fan of Sloan, I have honestly never been able to tell their vocalists apart. True, they do sound distinctive, but I can’t keep them straight at all.  So this album should help with that (and maybe see if there is one composer I like better–I don’t think so).

I chose this song primarily because it seemed to tie in well with this book and also because it a rocking song that last for less than 2 minutes.

The guitar comes rocking right at the start.  The verses are short and the bridge , a simple “Get out, you can get out” propels the song along nicely.  There’s a loud squalling guitar solos.  And a cool chorus with backing vocals.  And after two verses, two bridges and two choruses, the song ends.  A great soundtrack for an escape.

I’m looking forward to the release (although I won’t be getting the deluxe edition, sorry guys).

[READ: September 4, 2014] Flashpoint

In all of my time reading the 39 Clues, this is the first time I actually caught up to the series–I read this book almost in the week that it came out.  So if I was actually playing online with the clues, I may have been able to win whatever it is the online competition is.  Actually it’s quite rare that I read anything soon after it has come out, so that was fun in itself as well.

Okay, so this series has concluded with major 39 dude Gordon Korman taking over the reins.  And that made me happy, because he knows that the family working as a team is what is so important to the series.  And he got them working together again–even if it was because Amy was days away from death by the side effects of the serum.

As the story starts out (yes, I am still bitter about what happened at the end of Book Three–and I must report that that was not redeemed in any way, so yes, I am mad at the series for the senselessness of what happened to a favorite character of mine), Dan is being held prisoner by Galt Pierce.  (I love how nutty the Patriotist party is portrayed, and how easily susceptible people are to the platitudes Rutherford Pierce offers).  He and his sister Cara are trying to extract information from Dan.  Dan is given a truth serum and reveals some information, but then he takes a sleeping potion to knock himself out.

When he awakens, Galt threatens him, but Cara tells Galt to back off.  And then, unless Dan is mistaken, and he may be, she seems to help him escape from the plane that they are currently waiting in.  At the same time, Jonah Wizard’s plane is nearby (through some clever tracking by Pony), and they are able to rescue Dan.  Then they are off to Phenom Penh to find the final ingredient–the venom form a Tonle Sap snake.  Which means a trip through the amazingness that is Angkor Wat (more…)

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Tom Bissell–3 book reviews (Harper’s, August 2013)

Posted in Adelle Waldman, Alice Munro, Barenaked Ladies, Book Reviews, David Foster Wallace, George Eliot, Harper's, Jim Guthrie, Kathleen Edwards, Kevin Hearn, McSweeney's, Neil Young, Peter Orner, Rheostatics, Sex, Short Story, Sloan, Susan Choi, Tiny Desk Concert, Tom Bissell on September 21, 2013| 2 Comments »

aug2013SOUNDTRACK: JIM GUTHRIE-Tiny Desk Concert #294 (August 10, 2013).

jimgI was unfamiliar with Guthrie before this set and I almost didn’t play it because of his mustache–he just looks so country to me.  But then I read that he and his band drove 9 hours from Ontario just to do the show (which is 11 minutes long, so that’s pretty crazy).  But the set is really good.

The three songs come from Guthrie’s new album Takes Time (his first solo album in ten years).  And I was hooked…not right from the start, but 15 seconds into “The Difference a Day makes” when the guitar plays the chorus riff.  There is something so… Canadian about the melody line.  It reminds me of Neil Young, Sloan, Rheostatics, even Kathleen Edwards, all of these great Canadian songwriters who play with slightly different melodies.  The fact that he sings “doubt” and “out” with an Ontario accent solidifies it.  It’s one of my favorite mellow songs of the year.  “Before & After” sounds a bit like  Barenaked Ladies mellow song, like something  written by Kevin Hearn.  I tend to not like the Hearn songs, but I thin kit’s that I don’t like Hearn’s voice, because I like this song quite a lot.

Guthrie has a delicate but strong voice–I can’t imagine him screaming, but he conveys a lot.  Especially in the final song, the more mellow (and minor key) “Like a Lake.”  I’ve heard Tiny Desk shows that go on for five or six songs.  I wish that Bob and Robin had let them play for ten more minutes. Now I’m off to find his records.  Check it out.

[READ: September 10, 2013] 3 book reviews

Tom Bissell reviewed three new books in the August 2013 issue of Harper’s.  I like Bissell in general and since I’ll probably wind up writing about these when they get collected anyway, why not jump the gun here.  Especially when there’s three good-sounding books like these.

sagamoreThe first is Peter Orner’s Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge.  I know Orner from McSweeney’s mostly, where I’ve read a few of his things  But one of the stories that Bissell mentions from this short story collection sounds familiar and yet it doesn’t seem to be something I’ve read.  Hmmm.  Well anyhow, he says that Orner’s previous book (with a title that Bissell assumes he had to fight to keep–The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo) was a great piece of fiction about Africa, and that his previous collection Esther Stories was also very solid.

This book is a little stranger—bundled into 4 sections, it includes more than fifty “stories” and is all of 200 pages.  (Sounds like just the kind of thing I can get into).  Bissell suggests that the stories have a layer of remove, like someone telling a story about someone telling a story.  Or, if they were about a bank robbery, the story would actually be about someone describing having once met the guy who sold the robbers their ski masks.  But the real selling point for me was this pithy description of the collection: imagine Brief Interviews with Hideous Men written by Alice Munro.   That sounds hard to pass up. (more…)

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