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Archive for the ‘Nostalgia’ Category

Leland Myrick–Missouri Boy (2006)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Drugs, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Leland Myrick, Nostalgia, Romance, Sturgill Simpson, Tiny Desk Concert on August 16, 2016| Leave a Comment »

missouriSOUNDTRACK: STURGILL SIMPSON-Tiny Desk Concert #386 (August 30, 2014).

sturgSturgill Simpson is a (relatively) new country singer that everyone seems to want me to like.  I like some of the musical aspects of his new album, but his voice is just too twangy for me. So even if he’s singing about drugs or whatever, it all just sounds country to me.

Simpson is a funny guy though, he says that “Turtles All the Way Down” is a song that everyone is talking about bit no one gets what it is about.  “It’s about drugs.  And other stiff.”  When the song is over he says he was siting on a porch and a friend said,  “Hey man, you ever heard of DMT?” He said “Nope.”  I hadn’t either but evidently that was the inspiration for that song.

“Time After All” is a pretty song with some wicked guitar playing.

“Life of Sin” is a fast song with what I consider a pretty typical country music riff.  Simpson also has a big powerful voice which he uses to good effect here.

He introduces “Water in a Well” by saying he’s gonna do one for the ladies “I’m just bullshitting, they’re all for the ladies.”  It is a nice ballad that goes on pretty long.

I’d like to enjoy Simpson more as he has been experimenting with interesting ideas, but really, I just can’t get past his voice.

[READ: June 5, 2016] Missouri Boy

I genuinely had no idea what this graphic novel would be about.  I was vaguely familiar with Myrick’s work but wouldn’t have been able to pick it our. Although after reading this I see that his artistic style is quite distinct and his drawings of himself and his father from back in the 1980s are really affecting and powerful.

The overall story of this book is quite simple (and brief) and is done in short episodes.

It begins with the narrator’s birth in 1961.  On the day that he and his twin were born, his grandmother died. (more…)

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Jeff Kinney–Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School [#10] (2015)

Posted in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Children's Books, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Jeff Kinney, Khaira Arby, Nostalgia, Parenting, Poo, Short Books, Technology, Tiny Desk Concert, Toilets, Yuck! on November 15, 2015| Leave a Comment »

 schoololsSOUNDTRACK: KHAIRA ARBY-Tiny Desk Concert #94 (November 29, 2010).

khairaA year ago I would have said I know nothing about music from Mali, but the shows at NPR have given me a greater appreciation of it.  And, while I wouldn’t say I’d have been able to pick this out as music from Mali, I definitely recognized the style of the what I’m going to call fiddly guitar that seems to be prominent in Mali music.

You can really hear how good guitarist Drahmane Toure is with the way he keeps up the constant soloing and fiddly bits.  It brings a cool distinctive sound to the otherwise steady rhythm from the bass and percussion (which looks like a beautifully carved salad bowl covered in duct tape).

The rest of the band includes an acoustic guitar, a bass backing singers and some other instrument that i can’t figure out.

Of course, this show is meant to celebrate singer Khaira Arby, the queen of desert rock.  And she is fine.  I don’t really have much to say about her.  She sings perfectly for this music, and sounds almost more like a prayerful singer than a professional one.

[READ: December 27, 2013] Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School

Clark said that this book was the best Wimpy Kid yet (a claim he has made before, so this must be really great).  My story about this book is that I knew the cover was black and I know basically what the back cover looks like, so when we saw Age of Ultron this summer, imagine my surprise to see that the boy was reading this book (which didn’t come out until last week).  Movies are magic.

Anyhow, this book begins in September with some hilarious snark about “the good old days.”  I love Greg’s reaction, “I think they’re just jealous because MY generation has all this fancy technology and stuff they didn’t have growing up.”  And now Greg’s mom’s big kick is to get everyone to unplug.  To unplug and reconnect with the community. (more…)

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Grantland Quarterly, Number 12 (2015)

Posted in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Alex Pappademas, Amélie Mauresmo, Andrew Sharp, Andy Greenwald, Andy Murray, Anthony David, Baseball, Basketball, Bela Fleck, Bill Simmons, Books about music, Books about writers, Bryan Curtis, Chris Ryan, Chuck Klosterman, Culture Shock, David Shoemaker, Death, Edgar Meyer, Essays, Game of Thrones, Grantland, History, Hockey, Jonah Keri, Jonathan Abrams, Jordan Conn, Katie Baker, Kirk Goldsberry, Kiss, Lana Del Ray, Louie, Louisa Thomas, Mad Men, Mark Harris, Mark Titus, McSweeney's, Molly Lambert, Nostalgia, OutKast, Rany Jazayerli, Rembert Browne, Sam Knight, San Antonio Spurs, Shane Ryan, Soccer, Stanley Cup, Steven Hyden, The Other Woman, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Wesley Morris, World Cup, Wrestling, Zach Lowe, Zakir Hussain on September 15, 2015| Leave a Comment »

grant12SOUNDTRACK: BELA FLECK, EDGAR MEYER, ZAKIR HUSSAIN-Tiny Desk Concert #70 (July 26, 2010).

belaBela Fleck is a rather legendary musician, and yet I realized I don’t really know that much about him.  And somehow I never knew he was a banjo player (that’s a pretty serious omission on my part).  I had never heard of the other two musicians, although they are apparently world-class masters of the bass fiddle and the tabla.

I also didn’t expect this Tiny Desk Concert to be so interestingly world-musicy.

This set is only two songs but each is about 7 minutes long and they are both very cool (and from the album The Melody of Rhythm).

Fleck’s playing is amazing, with a tone that is often unlike a standard banjo sound.  And I absolutely love the tabla–I am fascinated by this instrument.  The first song, “Bubbles” is an amazing demonstration of Fleck’s banjo.  About midway through he is playing in a decidedly middle eastern style (which works great with the tabla).  And when the bass starts getting bowed around 1:50, it adds an amazing richness to this already cool song.   There’s a cool bass solo (I love that the tabla pauses a few times during the solo).  The ending is just wonderful.

Before the second song, “Bahar” (which means “springtime”) they talk about being nervous, which is pretty funny.  This song opens with the bass fiddle’s bowed notes (including a very very high note).  This one seems to be a more solo-centered, with some elaborate work from Fleck after the introduction. And the tabla solo, while brief, is really cool to watch.  I prefer the first song, but the more traditional nature of the second song is a nice counterpart to the first.

[READ: August 24, 2015] Grantland #12

I enjoyed this issue as well.  This was mostly the spring and summer of 2014, which sounds so long ago, and yet so many things seem so current.

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN-“The Life and Times of Kiss”
I love this article about Kiss.  And I wrote about it back here.

WESLEY MORRIS-“Poison Candy”
This is about the disastrous state of female comedies.  It focuses on the movie The Other Woman which is ostensibly a female centered comedy but is entirely other.

BILL SIMMONS-“Sterling’s Fold”
A drumming down of Donald Sterling.  It’s hard for me to believe that this happened over a year ago.

ZACH LOWE-“Building the Brow”
An article about Anthony Davis of the Pelicans, who is proving to be better than anyone imagined. (more…)

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Sarah Manguso–Ongoingness (2015)

Posted in Diary, Essays, Harper's, Mucca Pazza, Nostalgia, Sarah Manguso, Short Books, Tiny Desk Concert on April 28, 2015| Leave a Comment »

onfgoingSOUNDTRACK: MUCCA PAZZA-Tiny Desk Concert #419 (February 10, 2015).

Evmucca2en though I said that the Dan Deacon Tiny Desk was the most fun to watch, it is a close tie with this one from Mucca Pazza.  Mucca Pazza are a 23 piece band comprised of a huge horn section, violins, guitars, percussion, an accordion and even cheerleaders.  The group dress like a marching band (but everyone with a different colored (often ill-fitting) outfit).  The cheerleaders use caution tape as pompoms and do prompts between songs.  They tip their hats when songs are done.

They have been around for ten years (and have four albums out).  For this cramped Tiny Desk, they play four instrumental tracks (23 people and no vocalist!): “Subtle Frenzy” “J’accuse” “Dirty Chompers” and “Holiday on Ice.”

The songs are fast and fun and while there is an obvious marching band feel, they aren’t really marching band songs.  The electric guitar and strings tends to undermine the machine band tendencies (even if the xylophone adds it back).   Indeed, the electric guitars add a cool and sometimes disconcerting sound, like the guitar solo on “J’accuse” which is done on a teeny tiny guitar with a slide.

I love the melody of “Dirty Chompers”–such a fun song.  And “Holiday on Ice” is chock of full of the mayhem you might expect from the description of this band. The middle section slows down somewhat and sounds a little demented (in a good way) It also really highlights the different components of the group–with different horns playing different scales and the trombones keeping the main somewhat menacing riff consistent.

mucca 1So there’s a kind of Balkan Brass band element underpinning all of this–but there’s also discord and rock and psychedelia.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so many people having so much fun before.  Their full stage show must be a riot.

You can watch the Tiny Desk here and listen to a full show (with a video of one song) here.

[READ: April 10, 2015] Ongoingness.

This book was excepted in Harper’s in December. I read the excerpt just a few weeks ago.  And then when I saw someone request it at work I found our copy and, since the book was short, decided to read it at lunch before sending it off to the requester (such power I wield!).

In my post about the excerpt, I said that I couldn’t imagine how there could be much more than the excerpt and that I wouldn’t want to read a lot more of the book.  Well, it turns out that the book itself is a brief 96 pages and the bulk of those pages are only a few lines.  So a rough count would suggest about 36 pages altogether–an easy to read at lunch request.  And that’s good, because if this book were 400 pages it would be either obnoxious or really tedious.

But at this length, it’s an interesting and enjoyable look at memory and life and how much we should be concerned about remembering. (more…)

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Suketu Mehta–“Nina” (Harper’s, December 2014)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Bob Seger, Essays, Harper's, Laura Marling, Nostalgia, Sex, Suketu Mehta on April 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »

dec2014SOUNDTRACK: LAURA MARLING-“Walk Alone” NPR Lullaby SXSW (March 19, 2015).

marlingFrom March 17-March 21, the SXSW festival raged on. And my friends at NPR Music were there so I didn’t have to be. In past years they have had a nightly recap of their favorite shows of the day. This year they upped the ante by inviting a musician to sing a lullaby.  Most of these lullabies occurred in some unexpected outdoor location at 2 or so A.M. after a long day of music.

This late night lullaby was actually recorded much earlier than most (around 9:30P.M) because one of the gang had to leave early.

Marling has become one of my favorite new (to me) voices. I love the way she sings. It feels unconventional or unexpected somehow.  The way she doesn’t follow the melodies of her guitar playing is really cool and exiting. And when she drops into a nearly spoken word it’s quite arresting.

This song is from her soon to be released new album Short Movie, and it is as enchanting as anything she’s done.  You can check it out here.

[READ: March 23, 2015] “Nina”

This issue of Harper’s featured five essays (well four essays and one short story) about “Growing Up: five coming of age stories.”  Since I knew a few of these authors already, it seemed like a good time to devote an entire week to growing up.  There are two introductions, one by Christine Smallwood (who talks about Bob Seger) and one by Joshua Cohen who talks about the coming of age narrative.

This is a story of meeting a bad person and getting sucked into her life.  There’s nothing terribly original about this.  However, the characters (her name has been changed) are not your typically teenage angsty college students.  Set in 1981 at NYU, the narrator is Indian and the girl sitting next to him is Latina.  It’s cool to have a familiar story told with slight differences like this one does.

The girl asks him for help with her computer.  He fixes her problem and she asks to get his number so they can keep in touch.  She is very pretty.  He couldn’t resist calling her, so he invited her to a play and she agreed. (more…)

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Amie Barrodale–“My Mother’s Apartment” (Harper’s, December 2014)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Amie Barrodale, Bob Seger, Essays, Harper's, Laura Burhenn, Nostalgia, Teeth, The Mynabirds, William Gaddis on April 1, 2015| Leave a Comment »

dec2014SOUNDTRACK: MYNABIRDS-“All My Heart” NPR Lullaby SXSW (March 19, 2015).

mynaFrom March 17-March 21, the SXSW festival raged on. And my friends at NPR Music were there so I didn’t have to be. In past years they have had a nightly recap of their favorite shows of the day. This year they upped the ante by inviting a musician to sing a lullaby.  Most of these lullabies occurred in some unexpected outdoor location at 2 or so A.M. after a long day of music.

For this lullaby, the NPR gang met by Waller Creek, giving Laura Burhenn a perfect backdrop to her 2 A.M. lullaby. It’s just her and her tiny Casio keyboard (which is on an interesting setting that makes it sound more like a harmonium).

This is an as yet unreleased song.  It is simple and charming.  And I really like the way she plays an unexpected note in the chorus. Her voice is dusky and quiet and it all works so well in this setting. It’s a beautiful lullaby.

Check it out here.

[READ: March 23, 2015] “My Mother’s Apartment”

This issue of Harper’s featured five essays (well four essays and one short story) about “Growing Up: five coming of age stories.”  Since I knew a few of these authors already, it seemed like a good time to devote an entire week to growing up.  There are two introductions, one by Christine Smallwood (who talks about Bob Seger) and one by Joshua Cohen who talks about the coming of age narrative.

I don’t know Barrodale’s writing.  She says that she was 24 and took a writing class but only lasted for one day in the class.  She felt that getting an MFA was dishonorable.  Rather, she wanted to a have a real job but to write fiction on the side:  “I wanted to be like William Gaddis.  I wanted to work, drink, wear normal clothes, pay my bills and write.”

She was 31 when she realized her plans were not going to come true. (more…)

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Karl Ove Knausgaard [Knausgård]–“At First Blush” (Harper’s, December 2014)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Bob Seger, Essays, Harper's, Ingvild Burkey, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Karl Ove Knausgård, Luluc, Nostalgia, Technology, The New York Times Magazine, Translation on March 31, 2015| Leave a Comment »

dec2014SOUNDTRACK: LULUC-“Star” NPR Lullaby SXSW (March 18, 2015).

lulucRecorded outside of Stubbs while the groundscrew was cleaning up the huge mess, Luluc play a beautiful quiet ballad.

Steve Hassett plays lead acoustic guitar and sings harmonies while Zoë Randell plays rhythm guitar and sings lead. Interestingly, his voice often goes in higher registers than hers.

I really like the solo that he plays that adds a bit of uptempo feel to this otherwise quiet song.

Check it out here.

[READ: March 23, 2015] “At First Blush”

This issue of Harper’s featured five essays (well, four essays and one short story) about “Growing Up: five coming of age stories.”  Since I knew a few of these authors already, it seemed like a good time to devote an entire week to growing up.  There are two introductions, one by Christine Smallwood (who talks about Bob Seger) and one by Joshua Cohen who talks about the coming of age narrative.

Here’s yet another piece by Karl Ove (like the recent essay in the New York Times Magazine) translated by Ingvild Burkey

It’s hard for me to imagine that Karl Ove (who has written literally thousands of pages about his life) could have anything more to say–any incident that he hasn’t gone over with a microscope.  And yet, here he is with a new incident.

As with most things from Karl Ove, it explains a minute detail which proves to be a big event.  He was 12 and in school and told to spit out his gum.  As he walked up to the wastebasket the attention made him blush.  The first time he can recall the burning shame making him more self-conscious which then kept repeating itself.   And then some one said “Karl Ove’s face is all red!” (more…)

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Karen Russell–“Beeper World” (Harper’s, December 2014)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Bob Seger, Essays, Harper's, Karen Russell, Nostalgia, Technology, Tom Brousseau on March 30, 2015| Leave a Comment »

dec2014SOUNDTRACK: TOM BROSSEAU-“Will Henry” NPR Lullaby SXSW (March 17, 2015).

tbFrom March 17-March 21, the SXSW festival raged on. And my friends at NPR Music were there so I didn’t have to be. In past years they have had a nightly recap of their favorite shows of the day. This year they upped the ante by inviting a musician to sing a lullaby.  Most of these lullabies occurred in some unexpected outdoor location at 2 or so A.M. after a long day of music.

Tom Brosseau was the first up. He has a long history with All Songs Considered, and he was game to play a song he has never recorded–a murder ballad about Will Henry.

Brosseau has a delicate voice. And with just him and his acoustic guitar (and the sounds of bird and traffic, this is a delightful lullaby.  Even if the words are a murder ballad.

The song is pretty consistent in its simple musical pattern, so that at around 3 minutes when he runs a riff, it’s quite stimulating.

Check it out here.

[READ: March 23, 2015] “Beeper World”

This issue of Harper’s featured five essays (well four essays and one short story) about “Growing Up: five coming of age stories.”  Since I knew a few of these authors already, it seemed like a good time to devote an entire week to growing up.  There are two introductions, one by Christine Smallwood (who talks about Bob Seger) and one by Joshua Cohen who talks about the coming of age narrative.

Russell’s essay is all about growing up in the age of beepers in Florida. For her 14th birthday she received a Motorola beeper.  She says the beeper was an evolutionary adaption for teenagers.  [I for one am not that much older than Russell, but I missed the whole beeper phenomenon and found them incredibly silly].  Before she turned 14 she was a solitary person but the beeper was a way to get hee out and mingling with people (more…)

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Grantland Quarterly, Number 11 (2014)

Posted in Advice, Afternoon Delight, Alex Pappademas, Amos Barshad, Andrew Sharp, Andy Greenwald, Baseball, Basia Bulat, Basketball, Ben Lindbergh, Bill Barnwell, Bill Simmons, Books about music, Books about writers, Bryan Curtis, Chris Ryan, Culture Shock, Daniel Kellison, Danny Chau, Dave McKenna, Death, Emily Yoshida, Essays, Football, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Grantland, Harris Wittels, History, Hockey, Holly Anderson, House of Cards, In a World, Jason Concepcion, Jason Schwartz, John Lopez, Jonathan Abrams, Jordan Conn, Katie Baker, Kirk Goldsberry, Looking, Louisa Thomas, Mark Harris, Mark Lisanti, Mark Titus, McSweeney's, Molly Lambert, Nostalgia, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rafe Bartholomew, Rany Jazayerli, Rembert Browne, Robert Mays, Sean McIndoe, Shane Ryan, Steven Hyden, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Top Chef, Veep, Violence, Wesley Morris, Work of Art, Wrestling, Wu-Tang Clan, Zach Lowe on February 16, 2015| Leave a Comment »

11SOUNDTRACK: BASIA BULAT-“Tall Tall Shadow” and “It Can’t Be You” live at Polaris Music Prize (2014).

basiaSwinging to the other side of the musical world from Tanya Tagaq, Basia Bulat also performed at the 2014 Polaris.  I like Bulat a lot, she comes across as a sweet singer (no idea if she is actually sweet).  And I love that she can make really complex songs out of such random instruments (she plays autoharp, hammered dulcimer and others).

In this performance, she is fairly traditional for “Tall Tall Shadow” on the piano (although the french horn accompaniment is a nice twist), but “It Can’t Be You” on charango really highlights just what you can do with, essentially, a souped up ukulele.

“Shadow” highlights her voice which she holds for some quite long notes.  The song is really pretty with a great chorus.  “It Can’t Be You” is just her and the charango (which looks like a ten string ukulele but is Andean in origin).  It’s quite a song–her voice and that instrument are lovely.

[READ: February 4, 2015] Grantland #11

I enjoyed this issue quite a lot, even if I didn’t know who half of the people profiled were (and won’t remember them in two days time).

I am very curious why Grantland is just so obsessed with basketball than other sports.  It’s a little crazy how one sided these books tend to be.  They obviously love all sports but the preponderance of NBA articles is really staggering.

I do wish there’d be a bit more about TV and movies (and even more about the shows that I watch), but it is a fun way to learn about shows I would never watch.  And maybe that’s why I like these books so much, it’s my chance to vicariously enjoy sports without having to care about any of it (especially since it is all a year old, I never know if anything they talk about actually came to fruition or not).

This issue covers January-March 2014 (it’s fun reading about things almost exactly a year apart–to read about Oscars and Super Bowl stuff but have it be last year’s Super Bowl (especially since it too had the Seahawks) was very trippy indeed).

(more…)

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Elizabeth McKenzie–“Savage Breast” (New Yorker, December 15, 2014)

Posted in Adventure, Buckethead, Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains, Death, Elizabeth McKenzie, Huh?, New Yorker, Nostalgia, Praxis, Short Story on January 28, 2015| Leave a Comment »

dec15SOUNDTRACK: COLONEL CLAYPOOL’S BUCKET OF BERNIE BRAINS-The Big Eyeball in the Sky (2004).

eyeballAfter touring with Primus for a bit, Les met up with Buckethead, Bernie Worrell, and Brain at the 2002 Bonnaroo Music and Arts festival. Worrell, Brain and Buckethead were there to perform with Bill Laswell as Praxis, but Laswell was not able to play.  So Claypool invited them to jam with him and the Bucket(head) of Bernie (Worrell) Brain(s) was formed.

This is another fun jam band for Les with jamming credentials (Bonnaroo and all).  But the biggest change to the overall sound is the addition of Bernie Worrell on funk keyboards which adds a radically new dimension to Claypool’s music.  And Claypool plays along accordingly.

The disc opens with keyboards! (even a song that’s all about Buckethead opens with keyboards).  The verses are carnivalesque while the chorus are funky with Les’ wild bass and some good keyboards from Bernie.  Even though the guitars from Buckethead are great they don’t really stand out amid the music—there’s no room for showing off in this bunch (although his solo at 4:30 is pretty groovy).  I love the riffs (keys) at 3:00, it’s a great section and could have easily been a whole song.

I find that the more I enjoy the jamming music that Les creates the less I enjoy his vocals/lyrics.  It seems like his songs get limited when he starts using conventional (sic) verse chorus structure.  So I love the chorus that he sings on”Thai Noodles,” but the verses just don’t seem to fit with the interesting music going on.

“Tyranny of the Hunt” has an interesting weird riff, but the real highlight of the disc is “Elephant Ghost.”  I have complained that many of Les’ songs have been too long, but in this case, 11 minutes is just about right for this lengthy groovy jam.  It’s got the kind of melody that doesn’t grow tired after a few minutes and the soloing is really great.  It actually feels a lot shorter than some of his 6 minute songs.

“Hip Shot From the Slab” and “Junior” have that redneck kind of thing that Les has been playing with.  The backing vocals on “Slab” are a nice bright contrast, but I feel like he’s really getting hung up in this darker style of music lately.  “Scott Taylor” is another great instrumental.  I love that the main riff is a keyboard riff–and man is it a good one.  “The Big Eyeball in the Sky” is an anti-televsion song.  “Jackalope”is  a bouncing bass heavy instrumental.  It is the least fun of the three.  “48 Hours to Go” is a little dull, but the disc ends with the interesting “Ignorance is Bliss.”  This is a great change of pace with a cool violin/fiddle sound and good vocals.

Even though Claypool is ostensibly the leader of the band, I like these songs best when he take a backseat and lets the other guys shine.

[READ: January 21, 2015] “Savage Breast”

Now this was a weird little story.

It opens with a woman saying that the day was ordinary aside from her headache.  She was supposed to go to a party that night but didn’t feel like it.  So she took a nap instead.

But when she woke up she found out that the room she was in was not her own, but rather her childhood bedroom.  Everything was exactly as she remembered it–all details perfectly in place, including the view out the window and the clothes in the closet (which were her childhood clothes but still fit her).  Weird, right?  But even weirder was the fact that the other person in the house with her was a beast–a big hairy beast.  And yet, as she got nearer and nearer she realized that the beast was actually her mother–it acted like her, lay like her and behaved like her, even if she was totally covered in fur.

In fact, when her “sister” beast comes home, she acts exactly the way her sister did when they were kids.  And when her “father” beast comes home after work, he has the exact same drink that her real father always had.  It’s like a crazy flashback to her childhood, except that everyone is a beast.  (more…)

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