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Archive for the ‘Stars’ Category

*Five Dials 18: Sybille Bedford: On the Centenary of Her Birth (16 March 2011)

Posted in Aliette Martin, Books about writers, Death Cab For Cutie, Drinking, Five Dials, Food, Jonathan Safran Foer, Richard Todd, Stars, Sybille Bedford on August 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: STARS-Live at the 9:30 Club, Washington DC, October 20, 2007 (2007).

Thanks NPR for this unexpected concert.  Unexpected because Stars is a wonderful band but I think they’re largely unknown (I could be wrong about that, but it’s not like you hear them on the radio or anything). 

This show was during a tour for In Our Bedrooms After the War, which was one of the best albums of the year as far as I’m concerned.  

It’s an intimate album, with all kinds of styles in it: whispered confessions, dancey pop songs, synthy tracks and also some solid alternative rock.  The unifying theme for Stars is beautiful, often super catchy songs that are filled with melancholy and sadness (and occasionally, hope: “at least…the war is over”).  But the key to their beauty is the wonderful harmonies that the singers give us.

Musically the things that surprised me most during this show were the singers’ speaking voices.  Torquil Campbell’s speaking voice is quite a high register and yet his singing voice is low and soothing.  The opposite is true for the other singer, Amy Millan who has a kind of gruff peaking voice but whose singing voice soars to the heavens.  It’s fascinating.  Torquil is also a gushing frontman, thanking the audience so much for coming and even asking “Don’t your friends have bands that are playing whose shows you should be at right now?”  He also thanks Ben and the rest of Death Cab for Cutie for being so very nice to them.  A very nice chap it seems.

The bands sounds quite good live, but my only problem with the show is that as i mentioned, Stars’ music is very intimate, sometime whisper-quiet, and it doesn’t always translate very well in a live setting (even a relatively small club like the 9:30 Club).  Sometimes it feels like they’re singing too loudly to match the music.  Now, it’s entirely possibly that this doesn’t come across when you see them live, that this soundboard recording picks up every flaw. 

Despite that, there’s undeniable energy here and some really great moments where the bands switches direction at the drop of a hat.  And, overall, this is an excellent introduction to the wonder that is Stars’ music (or a big treat for established fans).

[READ: July 25, 2011] Five Dials 18

Five Dials 18 is unique in the history of the journal.  This entire issue is given over to the memory of SYBILLE BEDFORD.  It is written by ALIETTE MARTIN (there’s not even a Letter for the Editor).

Martin writes about Bedford’s love of wine and fine food.  It was pretty funny to read about her detailed love of meat after reading all of the vegetarianism promoted in the Five Dials news pages (Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals was just published by Hamish Hamilton). (more…)

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Tessa Hadley–“A Mouthful of Cut Glass” (New Yorker, June 6, 2005)

Posted in Culture Shock, Marriage (Happy), New Yorker, Romance, Short Story, Stars, Tessa Hadley, The Kopecky Family Band, Tiny Desk Concert on July 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KOPECKY FAMILY BAND-Embraces EP (2008).

I learned about Kopecky Family Band from NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert.  When I investigated further, I found that I could download this EP for free. I compared their Tiny Desk show favorably to The Head and the Heart.  This earlier EP has a bit more punky edge to it (as their other stuff may as well–Tiny Desk doesn’t really lend towards punk).

And so this EP leads me to compare them more towards Stars.  But perhaps we’ll call them a more acoustic version of Stars.  There is some wonderfully intense musical construction on this EP, and the dynamic of the duel vocalists really bring great tensions.

This is a wonderful EP.  The strings belie the rather heavy chords  (especially on “Trainwreck”) and the harmonies throughout are really infectious.

[READ: June 30, 2011] “A Mouthful of Cut Glass”

I’ve really enjoyed Tessa Hadley’s recent stories in The New Yorker.  So I decided to go back through their archives and read the other stories of hers that they have published.  It turns out that she has been published in the New Yorker since 2002.  But many of the earlier stories were collected in her previous collection which I’ll read one of these days.  But rather, I started with the first ones that have yet to be collected.

“A Mouthful of Cut Glass” is a conflation of two expressions, neither of which I was familiar with: “talking through a mouth full of plums” and “an accent like cut glass.”  The malaprop came from the protagonist’s boyfriends’ mother.  And yet, I say protagonist as if Shiela is the real protagonist.  The story quite clearly opens with Neil.

In 1952 Neil was born into a very poor household.  But over the years, he was able to rise above his sattion and become a successful University student.  It was at University that Neil met Sheila.  Sheila grew up in a vicar’s house with a gaggle of brothers and sisters.  The two of them hit it off very well and began a serious relationship. (more…)

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Michael Winter–“What He Saw” (The Walrus, June 2006)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Michael Winter, Sex, Short Story, Stars, The Walrus, Tiny Desk Concert, Travel on May 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: STARS-Tiny Desk Concert #108 (February 3, 2011).

Stars are a wonderful Canadian band who play pop songs with a very dark undercurrent.  They’re the kind of band that’s so easy to sing along to until you realize just what you’re singing.

This is the shortest Tiny Desk show that I’ve heard so far–it’s barely ten minutes in total.  The performers are singers Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell with an acoustic guitar accompaniment.  And they sound wonderful.

They play two songs from their newest album The Five Ghosts (which I have only streamed online and have to admit I didn’t love as much as their earlier discs).  The songs sound wonderfully impassioned in this strip down format.  (Perhaps I didn’t give Ghosts a fair listen).  They also play one old, classic song, “Your Ex-Lover is Dead” which sounds great as well.

It’s a nice little dose of unplugged Stars.

[READ: March 17, 2011] “What He Saw”

This was a very short (less than three pages) story and the whole process seemed to be so effortless, that I wound up being disappointed by it.

It’s a very simple story of a couple on vacation.  They have a fight (again) and she storms off the beach into the water leaving Gus by himself with his sketches (he’s an artist).  She swims out as far as she can–to the rope that cordons off the yachts that are docked there.

When she reaches the rope, she sees a couple on a buoy by the boats.  She swims to the couple and starts chatting.  She learns a bit about them and then sees that not only is she topless (it is Europe after all), but that they are both bottomless as well.  She has clearly interrupted something, but they don’t seem to mind.  Indeed, the man seems to be encouraging her to come closer to them. (more…)

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Karen Russell–“The Dredgeman’s Revelation” (New Yorker, July 26, 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Canadian Music, Depression, Karen Russell, New Yorker, Stars, Violence on August 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: STARS-In Our Bedroom, After the War (2007).

I listened to the latest Stars release on cbcradio3 (they had been streaming it there).  I liked it but I didn’t love it.  So I went back to the predecessor to see if I still liked Stars as much as I recalled liking them.

And I do, indeed.  The vocals are split between the gorgeous, delicate Amy Millan and the earnest Torquil Campbell.

“The Night Starts Here” is a beautiful track and “Take Me to the Riot” is a stellar, catchy song with a rousing chorus.

In fact, the disc plays nicely back and forth with dancey tracks (like the discoey “My Favourite Book”) and more delicate tracks (like the delightful “Midnight Coward”.)

“The Ghost of Genova Heights” sounds not unlike Prefab Sprout (with another dioscoey sound).  While “Personal” is sad song about Personal ads (or the people in them, anyhow).  It’s the most downbeat song on the disc, and it acts as a nice breather for what’s to come.

There are a couple of simple piano songs, like “Barricade” which veers towards over the topness, but stays on the good side of it.

“Window Bird” has a great surprise twist in: after some delicate “forget, forget” whispers, a rocking bridge pushes its way in.  The disc ends with the almost closer: “Today Will Be Better I Swear,” which, with its musical diminutions would make an excellent end to the disc.  Although the closing song (the title track), makes for an excellent coda.

The Stars folk know their way around a delicate and catchy melody.  And their lyrics are strong too.  This is definitely a favorite disc of the last few years, even if, as Sarah points out, it’s not as rocking as I normally like.

I’ll probably check out The Five Ghosts, but I fear it will be hard to live up to this disc.

[READ: July 31, 2010] “The Dredgman’s Revelation”

Karen Russel is another of The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40.  And this is a story that I wouldn’t normally read.  (I don’t have much of an affinity for depression-era fiction).  So I’m glad I said I would read all of these authors, as it exposed me to something new.

This story is about Louis Thanksgiving Auschenbliss.  Louis was born in a foundling’s hospital.  The story of his birth and the origin of his name are very enjoyable.  In fact, I would have wanted to read the story more if it started with this segment, rather than the stuff about the dredgeman (although I admit that the placement works much better dramatically).

Louis was eventually adopted by the Auschenbliss family, who treated him as if he was worse than an animal.  He was forced to do chores with virtually no rest for most of his young life.  But Louis never complained, he did what he was made to do, despite the abuses.  Until he’d had enough.  And then he left.

He found work as a Dredgeman in a Florida swamp.  The Model Land Company was digging a canal, and Louis was delighted to find work, even if it was work that every other man hated.  Because of Louis’ terrible family, he felt that anything, even dredging, was better than what he had been through.  And even though the crew thought he was weird for being so happy, he felt a kind of bond with them.

And so Louis is sad when the job ends.  But he quickly finds work with another company in an even more depressing, bug infested swamp.  The people aren’t as nice, but he’s still happy.

(more…)

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Joyce Carol Oates–“Suicide by Fitness Center” (Harper’s, June 2008)

Posted in Canadian Music, Funny (strange), Harper's, Joyce Carol Oates, Short Story, Stars, Supernatural, The Dears on July 17, 2008| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: STARS-Do You Trust Your Friends (2007).

Stars released Set Yourself on Fire in 2005. It was a surprisingly good and catchy pop album from a band I hadn’t heard of before. It was lyrically downbeat, and yet the choruses were sweeping and grand. A great paradox of a record that I liked very much.

Well, they gave the master tapes to a whole bunch of their Canadian band friends and had them remix or redo the songs. This collection is interesting in that the collective work is very strong and everybody makes a remix that is fresh and interesting. I didn’t know too many of the bands before hand (only The Dears) so the sound was pretty new to me. The Dears do an interesting thing with their track: they split their song into two songs, since the original had two distinctive parts. It’s a fun thing to hear.

Most of the roster comes from the Arts & Crafts label, so that may give you an idea of the sound; they include some dance remixes, some indie rock remixes and some straight ahead pop ones. Obviously, the original is better if only for the overall continuity, but this is an interesting and enjoyable listen in and of itself.

[READ: June 30, 2008] “Suicide by Fitness Center”

Joyce Carol Oates must talk in her sleep, and she must have a dictation service that records all of it. (more…)

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