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Archive for the ‘The Dismemberment Plan’ Category

Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky–Sex Criminals: Volume Two: Two Worlds, One Cop (2014)

Posted in Chip Zdarsky, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Library Related, Masturbation, Matt Fraction, Money, Ongoing, Sex, Supernatural, The Dismemberment Plan, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfinished series, Violence, Virginity (Loss of), Yuck! on April 27, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DISMEMBERMENT PLAN-Tiny Desk Concert #323 (December 2, 2013).

I always think that The Dismemberment Plan is a loud punk band (understandably with that name).  But this Tiny Desk Concert sees the band with acoustic guitar, keyboards and brushes on the drums.  What I didn’t realize was that the band had broken up and reunited and had made a new album in 2013:

When the newly re-formed band finally did make its way to our offices — on the heels of Uncanney Valley, its first album in 12 years — it unsurprisingly made for an odd fit.  According to the group, these particular arrangements of songs from Uncanney Valley were sorted out just a day before this Tiny Desk Concert.

“Let’s Just Go To The Dogs Tonight” is a fun bouncy song full of mildly amusing wordplay and naughtiness.  There’s a call and response section: “when I say ‘Outta’ you say ‘Luck’ and when I say ‘Cluster you’ say ‘Fuck'” (singer Travis Morrison flubbed the call-and-response portion of “Let’s Just Go to the Dogs Tonight,” he professed nervousness at making the NPR staff holler F-bombs. (No one seemed to mind)).   I like the simplicity of the guitar chords, but I really like the fun bass line–not funky exactly, but just meandering around in a really tuneful way.

“Lookin'” is a slow ballad with a simple guitar melody.  It’s a plaintive song that’s lightened by a bouncy bass line and some cool synth sounds near the end.

For the final song, “Daddy was a Real Good Dancer,” Morrison switches to keys and the keyboardist switches to guitar.  They say that the guitar is brand new for the show–“we went to Guitar Center for you guys.”  Bob says they need to break a string to break it in.  This song is lighthearted and a bit goofy, about a dad who used to dance until he had him.  Once again, the bass line really makes the song (and the drums are pretty great, too.

It’s a lighthearted and fun concert–surprisingly so for a band with dismember in their name.

[READ: June 6, 2016] Sex Criminals Volume 2

I really enjoyed Volume One of this series.  I was shocked to see that it had been almost two years since I’d read it.  And I was thrilled to see Volume 2 in the library.

The only problem with Volume 2 is that it assumes you have just finished volume 1, so there’s no playing catch up if you read it two years ago.

Especially since Book 6 opens with Suzie saying “So I’ve been digging in to pull off a fundraiser to make up the difference and keep the place open, so uh… The end?”  But of course it is not the end.  And when Jon tells us that things aren’t over, he pulls down his pants to show that he has nothing there–he’s like a Ken doll.  What happened?  In book 1 these two were going at it like rabbits.

It turns out that the Sex Police had a kind of tracking device–a Cumpass–that monitored everyone who had an orgasm and entered The Quiet (see book 1 review to figure out what the hell I’m talking about).  Things get really stressed out for Jon over the next few days and he begins seeing symptoms of something–which he looks up online and decides is canceraids (it isn’t). (more…)

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Lucy Corin–One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses (2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Death, Dogs, End of the World, Fire, Flash Fiction, Funny (strange), Godzilla vs the Smog Monster, Lucy Corin, McSweeney's, Oddities, Short Story, The Dismemberment Plan, Violence on October 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

corin SOUNDTRACK: THE DISMEMBERMENT PLAN-“No One’s Saying Nothing” (2013).

IDismembermentPlan_CVR-a71cdf7d3b8dde6270c3a01bb56278949eddb5fa-s1 thought I knew The Dismemberment Plan, but I must have them confused with someone else, because this song doesn’t sound anything like what a band called The Dismemberment Plan ought to sound like (which is noisy and chaotic and probably death metal).  This song has big vocals, organ and piano.  Nevertheless, it is rather raucous and is quite fun (and has what sounds like a drill sound effect in the beginning and middle).

Lyrically, the song is odd–“If you press the space bar enough, cocaine comes out.  I really like this computer.”

But it has a very fun devil-may-care, throw in everything attitude that I really like it.  The entire album was streaming on NPR, and I’m looking forward to hearing more from them–including their back catalog work, to see if they ever sounded like what I thought they sounded like.

[READ: October 1, 2013] One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses

I was excited to get this book because I thought the title was quite intriguing (and the crazy way the cover is cut out was also interesting).

There are four “stories” in the book.  The first three are about twenty pages each while the fourth is over 100 and is comprised of the titular 100 apocalypses (I didn’t count them).

“Eyes of Dogs”
This story contained marginalia (which is sort of like footnotes but not attached to anything specific). In this story a solider meets a witch and she tells him how to get money—climb down a hole and encounter three dogs.  He must wink at the first, blink at the second and hold his eyes closed for the third.  The story seems to be going along sensibly like a fairy tale but then it grows introspective and stops.  I was disappointed in this one.

“Madmen”
This story was utterly bizarre and yet by the middle of the story the bizarreness was explained and by the end I enjoyed it very much.  The premise of this story is that when children grow old they are given a madman to take care of (it is told matter of factly which makes you have to wonder if madman is code for something else.  When boys reach a certain age and when girl;s have their first period (which is an unfair division of genders) they get to go to the asylum and pick which madman (or woman) they want to bring home and care for.  The bulk of the story is at the asylum with the girl “interviewing” the candidates and her mother being mad at her choices.  Ultimately the story turns onto a nice moment between the girl and her dad, who may or may not have married his own madman.  As I said very weird, but satisfying.

“Godzilla versus the Smog Monster”
This was the most “real” of the four stories and it was my favorite.  A fourteen year old boy is watching “Godzilla vs the Smog Monster.”  He found the unlabelled video of it in his father’s sweatshirt drawer and assumed it was porn.  He’s bummed that it turns out to be this Godzilla movie.  In a parallel story, when the boy goes to school his class is watching live footage of California burning—and this burning is uncontainable.  The whole state is slowly engulfed in flames.  This fire, which seems to be some kind of attack obviously changes the minds of everyone in the story, including Sara, a girl who Peter thinks is pretty but who never talks to him.  But when she crashes her car in front of his house, he helps her and they go for a ride to a cave.  Images of the smog monster crop up in interesting ways.  Things get weird and less tangible, but because the beginning was so real it made the ending okay.

“A Hundred Apocalypses”
So this selection disappointed me because it proved to be 100 (I assume) flash fiction pieces.  And I have more or less come down against flash fiction these days.  Especially the kinds of stories that make an interesting “sketch” but aren’t really stories The other problem is that all 100 seemed to be about “apocalypses” which is a useless words when tossed around so much and which loses all meaning when there are 100 that seem to be about actual apocalypses.  Or something.  I also just learned that apocalypse means un-covering or revelation, not really the end of the world, but whatever.

There were probably 6 out of the hundred that I really enjoyed.  Sadly, I didn’t mark them and I don’t remember which ones they were.  The rest were okay or worse.

I am ready for flash fiction to go away.  And I fear that my beloved McSweeney’s is one of the prime generators of the genre, so perhaps they could knock it off for a bit.

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