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Archive for the ‘The Black Keys’ Category

Boris Starling–Haynes Explains Americans: Owners’ Workshop Manual (2017)

Posted in Baseball, Basketball, Boris Starling, Dan Auerbach, Food, Football, Funny (ha ha), John Prine, Language, Manuals, South, Sports, The Arcs, The Black Keys, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfunny on April 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DAN AUERBACH-Tiny Desk Concert #726 (April 4, 2018).

Everybody loves Dan Auerbach, but I’m just lukewarm on him.  I could never get into The Black Keys and the Arcs were okay.  I will say that I absolutely love the final song they play here today and didn’t realize it was him.  But I think I dislike the style of music he makes not the quality of the songs.

Dan brings his Easy Eye Sound Revue to the Tiny Desk. It’s an abundance of gifted musicians who have all played with a long, long list of legends, including Elvis, Don Williams and John Prine. …  The small band for this stripped-down version of the “Revue” is fleshed with Dante Schwebel on guitar and Russ Pahl’s resonator guitar sounds.

Midway through the four-song set (that includes tunes from his 2017 album Waiting on a Song), Dan introduces a powerhouse: the seasoned but relatively unknown blues-and-soul singer Robert Finley. The husky voiced gentleman, with a giant smile and magical charisma, is heart-winning and heart-warming. It’s remarkable that this legally blind singer is only now getting the attention he deserves….  Robert Finley and Dan Auerbach released [an album] at the end of 2017 called Goin’ Platinum.

In the recent Tiny Desk Concert from fellow Nashville musician John Prine, [he told a tale] of writing songs with Pat McLaughlin in the morning, going to town for some meatloaf and then recording the song by day’s end. Well that’s Pat on the mandolin here in this Tiny Desk set. His playing is both astonishing and low-key.

The Review plays four songs

“Waiting On a Song” is a folk song with a country feel and a slide guitar solo on that resonator guitar.

“Never In My Wildest Dreams” feels like an old cowboy song complete with what is almost cowboy yodelling from Schwebel.

“Get It While You Can” features Robert Finley on vocals.  It is the traditional song and Finley does a great job, singing with gusto and making clear some lyrics that I never heard before.  His voice is pretty great too.

“Shine On Me”  This song is irresistible even if it sounds exactly like a Travelling Wilbury song.

It’s just a matter of time before he hits on a genre that I really like, I’m sure.

[READ: January 5, 2018] Haynes Explains Americans

This book came across my desk and it looked pretty funny.

There was no author name on the cover, but inside it mentions that it is written by Boris Starling.  I’d never heard of him, but I looked him up and found that he has written seven crime novels and that his first, Messiah, was notable for its fast pace and high levels of gore.  He has written a bunch of other stuff too, including several (at least 12) of the popular ‘Haynes Explains’ series of tongue-in-cheek mini-manuals.

So this is written as a manual (based on a stripdown and rebuild).

It is written very much like a car manual: “the aim of this manual is to help you get the best value from the American.”  It includes lots of pictures of car parts with labels for other things.  It’s a good mockery of the manuals .

Normally I enjoy a good mockery of Americanisms.  We are ripe for parody.  But this book feels just too easy. (more…)

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Adam Johnson–“Interesting Facts” (Harper’s, June 2015)

Posted in Adam Johnson, Cancer as plot device, Death, Flor de Toloache, Marriage (Happy), Short Story, The Arcs, The Black Keys, Tiny Desk Concert, Unreliable narrator on January 28, 2016| 1 Comment »

june2015SOUNDTRACK: THE ARCS-Tiny Desk Concert #504 (January 25, 2016).

arcsOkay so the Tiny Desk folks make a pretty big deal out of this being their 500th show and I am stating that it is their 503rd show.  I have to guess that they post some shows out of order because I have counted twice and gotten the same number.  So we will choose to disagree with our numbering system, but I will also agree that this was their 500th episode because, why would they lie?

The Arcs are a band that I wished I liked more.  Everyone seems to enjoy them, but I really don’t.  Of course, I don’t like The Black Keys either, so this is no surprise, really.  Nevertheless, Dan Auerbach, who is in both bands, has a great voice and writes some interestign songs, I just don’t care for his arrangements–the very soulfulness that attracts fans, I guess.

They are accompanied by three members of  the Mariachi band Flor de Toloache, who did a Tiny Desk Concert a few weeks earlier (although I’m guessing it was the same day, hint hint).  They play a great accompaniment–sometimes all of them play, sometimes just one, and they add interesting elements to the songs.  They also sing backing vocals.

The band plays three songs from their album.  “Pistol made of Bones” which I like in this version (I don’t know the original, I don’t think).  I especially like the way the horn and violin play along with the melody and give it a very Mexican feel.  It removes some of the soul that I don’t really like about the songs.

The other two songs are the two singles from the album and I find that I like them less (I guess I’m a deep cuts kinda guy).

“Stay in My Corner” is a fine song.  I like the guitar lines and the way he sings it.  It’s just not my thing.  I really enjoy the backing vocals by drummer Homer Steinweiss, who has this hilarious style of tapping out these beats while leaning (practically asleep) on the drum machine–totally low key.

I really enjoy Auerbach’s singing delivery in “Outta My Mind.”  I just wish the song would do more.  I want it to be…something else.

So the 500th (ish) episode was probably a lot more fun in the Offices than it was for me.  Although I enjoyed the confetti cannons.

But congratulations anyway!  Here’s to 500 more–but take a break for a few weeks so i can play catch up, okay?

[READ: January 4, 2016] “Interesting Facts”

I hadn’t been reading all that many short stories at the time that I read this because I had been focusing on graphic novels and books.  So jumping back into the short stories at Harper’s has been a real treat.  And I really enjoyed this one.

Although I’m always leery of stories that center around a main character with cancer, I thought the way this was done was clever and interesting and it absolutely drew me in to the story.  Plus it was funny (at least at the beginning).

I loved the way it started: “Interesting fact: Toucan cereal bedspread to my plunge and deliver.”  It doesn’t even fully make sense by the end of the story but an essential part does and I enjoyed the way it was presented like this.

The story is told from the point of view of * a woman who developed breast cancer a few years back.  She says that “I’m going to discuss the breasts of every woman who crosses my path.”  And indeed she does. (more…)

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