SOUNDTRACK: WALTER MARTIN-Tiny Desk Concert #679 (December 1, 2017).
Walter Martin’s name didn’t sound familiar. So this blurb helped:
Best known as a singer and multi-instrumentalist with the band The Walkmen, Martin has spent his solo career making unabashedly joyful, sweetly innocent and playful music perfectly suited for quirky four-part harmonies.
I sort of know The Walkmen; I know them more as an outlet for Hamilton Leithauser. But after watching this, I find Martin to be a more satisfying performer.
I really enjoy his easy singing style and the every loose way he has with his guitar and with the songs in general.
Only Walter Martin would bring a barbershop quartet to the Tiny Desk. The barbershop quartet is known as The Glen Echoes, a group of singers he found online and met for rehearsals the day before coming to NPR. It works particularly well on the song with which he opens this performance, “I Went Alone On A Solo Australian Tour,” a brilliant and comical call-and-response story-song about, well, going alone on a solo Australian tour.
“I Went Alone On A Solo Australian Tour,” is indeed really enjoyable. Martin is casual and I love how the quartet starts out singing with him, then questioning him and then just acting like casual acquaintances–he asks them questions, too and they sing the responses. All without losing the pacing.
It’s funny but also thoughtful.
The second song, the equally charming if slightly more wistful “Me And McAlevey,” is about a dear friend who lives in Maine. It’s about friendship and loyalty and life as a middle-aged father.
The song is relatively simple and straightforward, but the guitar picking is delightfully complex and pretty. I really like his vocal delivery and the way he ends his verses.
Martin closes with “Sing To Me,” his best-known song, thanks in no small part to its appearance in an Apple ad.
He describes it as the romantic centerpiece of his children’s album. It is a pretty song once again, with lovely sentiments. The pianist switches to electric guitar for a rather different sound.
The whole Tiny Desk Concert is delightful and makes me want to check out more of his stuff. There’s no mention of who play what, but the mudsicians were: Josh Kaufman; Jamie Krents; Brian Kantor; Richard Cook; Ken Sleeman; Mike Holmes and Al Blount.
[READ: March 28, 2017] Becca and the Prisoner’s Cross
This is the second (and final) novella in the series. It comes between books 2 and 3. And, as the title suggests it is all about Becca.
The end of book 2 had Becca “materialize” on a boat in the past–right next to Nicolaus Copernicus. It was a weird ending for a book that while sometimes magical, seemed to follow some kind of reality. But this was different. What could it mean?
Well, this novella explains it all (sort of). We suspect that Becca’s proximity to the Kronos device when it went off triggered something. (I keep wondering if it has something to do with her hurt arm which, frankly, shouldn’t hurt anymore, it has been two weeks, right?).
Anyhow, what we determine is that Becca is sort of passing out at home and her mind is travelling to Copernicus. No time passes at home, but she is able to spend time with the scientist. The best reveal comes early in the book when Copernicus senses that someone is there as well. (more…)
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When I got a ticket to this show, I was swept up in the excitement of this reunion tour. I didn’t really know The Walkmen, but I knew of them. I mostly knew Hamilton Leithauser from his solo work. But I was also very familiar with their hit “The Rat.”
Every year since 2004, The Believer magazine has published a Music Issue which comes with a CD.