SOUNDTRACK: FRANKIE VALLI AND THE FOUR SEASONS-“Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” (1967).
This was our wedding song. Sarah and I took ballroom dance classes and we choreographed a dance to this song using the moves that we knew. And that is one of the things people still talk about our wedding. It was a fun and feisty dance.
But it was also sneaky because it starts out slow (we heard someone comment “swaying” as the song started out.
And then the horns kick in and we pulled out all of our best moves. It was a huge hit.
We did not video our wedding, and our one regret is that we kept our big dance a secret so no one filmed it. It now just lives on in memory.
[MARRIED: January 17, 2004] Paul Debraski & Sarah Cornish
Ten years ago today Sarah and I were married.
It was a glorious day, a little cold (but who could feel it?). We had a brief but wonderful ceremony and then an amazing party afterwards full of friends and relatives. The food was great, the company was great, even the cake was great (ask anyone who was there). It even snowed that night.
Six months before that I proposed using this book. I can’t remember what the actual book was that I cut up and modified–it would be interesting to see if I ever wanted to read it.
I drew my own cover (full of personal secrets), made an inside cover with our photos and even put some blurbs on the back. And then I glued the pages together and cut out an opening for the engagement ring. (There’s also a page of personal stuff that you aren’t allowed to see).
And here it is ten years later. It’s hard to imagine how much has changed in ten year. We’ve got two wonderful kids, a bunch of chickens, other small animals and jobs that are completely different than they were a decade ago.
Happy anniversary, my love, and here’s to ten more.
And, yes, since this post is a surprise for Sarah, i hope to update the pictures when we get back from our anniversary vacation.
Most Best of records promise you a selection of popular songs from a band. Voivod never really had any popular songs, so this is an interesting choice to start with. This may also be the only Best of compilation of a band where people who like some of the songs almost assuredly will not like other songs.
As my posts about the band have indicated, Voivod changed drastically over their first six records (which is the period this collection covers). And so in twelve tracks and 50 some minutes you get the very diverse history of this very unusual band. I’m not going to talk about each track (already done that), but I will list the songs
Voivod [War and Pain] classic screaming metal.
Ripping Headaches [Rrröööaaarrr] brutal, but I must say sounds a ton better than the original CD. I wonder if this was remastered for the compilation).
Korgull the Exterminator [Rrröööaaarrr] hard to believe they used two songs from this album.
Tornado [Killing Technology] heavy but quite catchy.
Ravenous Medicine [Killing Technology] signs of complexity enter the heaviness.
Cockroaches [EP] a strange inclusion, almost a rarity.
Tribal Convictions [Dimension Hätross] very complex with some heaviness.
Psychic Vacuum [Dimension Hätross] I’m surprised they didn’t pick other songs though from this album.
Astronomy Domine [Nothingface] their hit.
The Unknown Knows [Nothingface] very hard to choose just two songs from this masterpiece.
Panorama [Angel Rat] Their newest single and quite a departure from everything that has come before.
The Prow [Angel Rat] their prettiest number ever. If you buy this CD for this song you’ll hate the early stuff.
Although Voivod fans (like Dave Grohl)
are diehard, anyone who would buy only a Best of record from the band is sure to be disappointed. There are so many phases of the band and they are so radically different from “Voivod” to “The Prow” that it’s almost not even the same band. I’m very curious as to what sales for this album were like. (Even the cover isn’t that inspired)
[READ: September 2013] The Walrus: Tenth Anniversary Issue
It’s hard for me to believe that The Walrus has been around for ten years (even they seem a bit surprised). I still remember hearing about the magazine on Book TV from some Canadian channel that I just happened upon.
When I heard about it The Walrus seemed interesting–kind of like Harper’s and elements of the New Yorker but all about Canada. I’ve been a Canuckophile for decades now, so it seemed like an interesting prospect. And over the ten years of the magazine, while I haven’t written about every issue, I have read every article. I have written about all of the short stories that they’ve published.
This issue eschews some of my favorite elements (the short articles in the front and the arts section in the back), but they make up for it with an oversized issue (twice as long as usual and the articles are all packed with content) and some fascinating articles.
And while there are none of the short articles from the front, there are “Time Capsules,” one page articles about things that have happened in the last ten years: The iPhone, Sports Concussions, Armed Drones, The Residential School Apology, Justin Bieber, Foodies, Hand Sanitizer and Cyberbullying. It’s interesting to read about these phenomena from a slightly different perspective. We know that Canada and the U.S. share many similarities but there are, at heart some core differences. And it’s these differences that make you rethink a subject. (more…)
After Angel Rat, original bassist Blacky left the band. That’s never a good sign. After the tour for this album, original singer Snake left the band. That’s an even worse sign. I still can’t quite figure out exactly why Snake left (personal problems) but he went on to form the band Union Made. For a very detailed history of the band, check out this very cool timeline at Voivod dot net.
The Outer Limits got a pretty big release. I have an original copy that came with 3D glasses and all of the illustrations in 3D. But I was a little disappointed in Angel Rat and I don’t think I gave The Outer Limits much of a chance. It was no Nothingface. But the band was always morphing. Since Angel Rat went very commercial, this album brought things back into the prog realm (with a 17(!) minute song) but also had a lot of commercial songs.
The album opens with “Fix My Heart” which starts out much heavier than anything on Angel Rat. It’s also got some metal guitar pyrotechnics (squeaks and harmonics). Snake’s voice isn’t quite as pretty as on Angel Rat either—he growls a bit, but maintains his nicer voice overall. Nevertheless, “Fix My Heart” is a pretty commercial enterprise (as the title might even suggest). There’s some good “spacey” guitars sounds which bode will for the sci-fi angle of the album (and there’s some cool effects that reward headphone use). “Moonbeam Rider” starts with a very classic rock sounding riff and then morphs into a kind of pretty, mellow verse. But the interstitial guitar is all speed. It’s a nice mix of fast and slow. This song features some interesting bass work—nothing fancy but for the slow parts it is actually keeping the beat instead of the drums. The bassist was a studio musician for this album. There’s also what sounds like a bong during the pre-guitar solo section (the solo is fairly traditional).
“Le Pont Noir” is a mellow, slow guitar song with a very cool delay effect and Snake’s whispered vocals. The bridge gets heavy with a wonderfully weird Piggy guitar riff. It’s one of my favorite songs on the album.
Then the band’s second Pink Floyd cover appears. This time it’s the even more obscure “The Nile Song.” They have rather heavied this one up with crunching guitars and Snake’s distance screaming filling in the void (although in fairness the original vocals are also screamed). It’s not as dynamic or exciting as “Astronomy Domine,” but it’s still a cool cover. “The Lost Machine” starts off heavy with Away’s double cymbal work (a noisy splash and a fast ride cymbal). Then Piggy’s guitars have a slight delay on them which makes the opening chords sound especially odd. The bridge is a place for Piggy to show off some more weird spacey chords and some very cool guitar riffs. There’s even a spoken word narrator in the middle of the song that explains the “mission” “Time Warp” opens with a very bright and up beat sounding verse. But it quickly disintegrates into (intentional) musical chaos as the narrator gets lost in space.
This all leads up to the 17 minute “Jack Luminous.” If anyone doubted their prog rock leanings, this should dispel that immediate. 17 minutes, multiple parts, a sci-fi epic, it is prog (but heavy prog) at its finest. There are some incredibly catchy parts as well as some less catchy parts, and sections seem to change every two minutes or so. The slow down at 10 minutes is very cool—different guitar effects and the suspenseful bass line. There’s repeated sections as well, which means if you like some guitar line (the spacey part near the end) it comes back! It’s not quite as dynamic as say 2112, but it’s a very successful sci-fi epic.
“Wrong Way Street” returns to the normal and more conventional. The bass that opens the song sounds great and the chords are fairly conventional–the chorus is even really catchy. “We Are Not Alone” is a break-neck metal song, The drums are super fast, the guitars are relentless and the chorus even has an echoed “Hey!” that gets you to sing along. The song also features a cool slow, almost jazzy bass and drum section that lets Piggy throw some soloing in before returning to the fast paced verses.
There’s lots of theories about what happened to Voivod after this album. The success they had achieved earlier was now gone and the band seemed like they couldn’t decide to be metal or prog or is they should go for more pop music. The problem of course is that they were too weird to get mainstream acceptance anyway.
So Snake left and then there were only two original members. The next step would be a drastic one.
[READ: July 9, 2013] Grantland #7
This issue seemed to come hot on the heels of #6. But I enjoyed it just as much. A few notes: no Jeremy Lin in this issue. Lots of LeBron James, three articles about soccer! And a few pop culture moments that I had forgotten about.
REMBERT BROWNE AND DUSTIN PARKER-“The Jeopardy! Teen Tournament JUST. GOT. REAL.
Leonard Cooper didn’t know the final Jeopardy answer but he still won and he made a hilarious joke at the end (in cartoon format);
BILL SIMMONS-“Daring to Ask the PED Question”
Simmons talks a lot about PED’s in this forum. Of course, to me PED is my initials. For him (and sports fans) it is performance enhancing drugs. He asks why sports doesn’t do more about it. There are so many people who do it that every time we see someone who might be doing it or who suddenly has a good season, we assume they are doing them too. It would be a service to the players and the fans to have rigorous testing or none at all.
CHRIS RYAN AND ROBERT MAYS-“The NFL Coaches Family Portrait By the Numbers”
A silly analysis of a photo of NFL coaches.
WESLEY MORRIS-“Jodie Foster’s Big Night”
What exactly did Jodie Foster say at the Golden Globes? (This was in January and everybody talked about it and now it’s September and I’ve completely forgotten about it—funny ephemera of pop culture).
JONATHAN ABRAMS-“Out of Africa”
A serious look at trying to bring basketball to Africa. How the culture and language problems make it very difficult to establish any real cohesion in the diverse country. But there are a few examples of boys coming from Africa and benefiting from host families and then heading back to help those who love basketball back home. The main focus is on a 15-year-old Alexis Wangmene who came to the States (and left his family!) to try to gain an education and basketball skills. It’s a heartfelt story.
MOLLY LAMBERT-“Modern Love”
About the show Catfish which just goes to show we can sink even lower as a culture.
CHUCK KLOSTERMAN-“Mental Health Protocol”
About Royce White again. Last time there was a lengthy look at him. Now we get to hear that he thinks that everyone has some kind of mental health issue.
ANDY GREENWALD-“Eat Bray Love”
How cooking shows have gone from educational to crazy and annoying. He dislikes Top Chef and the new Anthony Bourdain show The Taste (which he says is awful) but he likes a decent show called Chopped.
ZACH LOWE-“The Fragile Science of Basketball Chemistry”
Sure the Heat were great this year, but it’s the way they evolved as a team, creating chemistry, that is so impressive.
RAFE BARTHOLOMEW-“The Pariah”
Timothy Bradley beat Manny Pacquiao in a disputed judges call. Instead of rising to fame, he has been avoided like the plague.
BILL SIMMONS-“The All-Manti Te’o Mailbag
Remember that crazy story about the football guy with the dead girlfriend who turned out to be fake? I never really understood the story and while they spend a lot of time talking and theorizing about it I still don’t get it. Did they ever find out the truth about it?
CHRIS BROWN-“Speak My Language”
When you play for the Patriots, you learn their way of doing things—it is simple and efficient, a streamlined version of what other coaches try to do.
KIRK GOLDSBERRY-“The Evolution of LeBron James”
Using diagrams, we see how much of a different player James is in just the last few years with The Heat. This article has made me want to watch James in a game while he is at his peak. So, Heat vs Bulls at the end of October, you’re on my schedule.
SEAN McINDOE-“The Non-Hater’s Guide to the NHL”
Even people who hate everyone in the NHL (which is everyone) can agree that there are some players who are universally admired: Martin Brodeur, Pavel Satsyuk. Teemu Selanne, Jarome Iginla, Jonathan Toews, Martin St. Louis, Gabriel Landeskog, Patrick Elias (Devils get two!), Ryan Smyth, Steve Sullivan, Saku Koivu, Henrik Lundqvist.
ALEX PAPPADEMAS-“God Needs a Hobby”
A look at Dan Harmon and his podcast Harmontown. Harmon seems like he might be a crazy alcoholic, but he’s also pretty darn funny.
MARK TITUS-“Duke’s Ignominious Son”
Everybody hates Christian Laettner, but that’s only because he’s pretty and he made The Shot
MARK LISANTI-“Three Days in Austin”
Dealing with the craziness of the South by Southwest film festival. Sounds awful.
HUA HSU-“The Alien Has Landed”
Soccer legend Ronaldo returns to Old Trafford
BILL SIMMONS-“The Greatest Action Franchise That Ever Was”
Live blogging the Fast and Furious 6 trailer. I admit I may have to see these films after reading this.
ZACH LOWE-“Lights, Camera, Revolution”
There’s some kind of new technology that will change the NBA forever. I pretty much don’t care.
TESS LYNCH-“Nostalgia Bites”
Watching old Real World episodes shows how much things have changed in reality TV, but also how much certain behaviors are not new.
BRIAN PHILLIPS-“Maradona, Then and Now”
Maradona was an amazing kid—at 15 he was remarkable at his ball control. Now at 52 he’s a crazy loon. What exactly happened in between?
ANDY GREENWALD-“From Big to Small, From Movie to TV”
Why not make Men in Black into a TV show—with some other film recommendations.
AMOS BARSHAD-“How Soccer Explains Israel”
I didn’t expect to enjoy this but I found it very interesting. An Israeli soccer team has signed two Muslim players and it has caused incredible animosity and even arson. How this look at a team is like a microcosm of the whole Israeli situation.
LOUISA THOMS-“Back to School”
Missy Franklin won a ton of medals in the Olympics. And then she went back to high school. What’s it like to be on her team at Regis Jesuit?
WESLEY MORRIS-“Run, Frank, Run”
Frank Ocean apparently wasn’t as huge as I thought he was.
MALCOLM GLADWELL AND CHUCK KLOSTERMAN–“The Lies He Told”
More about Manti Te’o. This discussion was a bit more helpful about what happened and how crazy it is.
CHRIS RYAN AND REMBERT BROWNE-“A List of Possible Reasons for Rob Gronkowski’s Arm Infection”
Hypothetical humor.
JORDAN CONN-“The Invisible Man”
Marc Gasol is extremely respected by scouts and agents, but the fans all think of him as Pau Gasol’s chubby little brother.
REMBERT BROWNE-“French Quarter Lessons”
While in New Orleans for the Super Bowl, Browne decided to go to a bunch of used bookstores. This is very funny and enjoyable.
JAY CASPIAN KANG-“Fiercely Disputed”
Mike Tyson’s one man show is weird and strangely affecting.
KATIE BAKER-“Do Svidanya to All That”
Several NHL players went to Russia’s KHL during the lockout. And some don’t want to come back.
CHRIS RYAN-“The All-Star Circus”
NBA All-Star weekend is a crazy circus (and sounds worse than the above SXSW festival).
CHUCK KLOSETRMAN AND ALEX PAPPADEMAS-“The Nobituary”
There was a serious rumor that David Bowie was on death’s door. Klosterman and Pappademas imagine writing his obituary.
DAVID SHOEMAKER-“Glenn Beck vs. WWE”
The WWE has always had racists as part of the act. What happens when some goons start acting like the Tea Party?
DAVID JACOBY-“The Pure Heart Meets The Bachelor”
Jacoby’s grandmother watches The Bachelor and he feels badly for her.
STEVEN HYDEN-“Is This It?”
The Strokes’ fifth album had just come out [really?]. It could be their last, but Hyden thinks their last two have been quite good.
BILL SIMMONS-“The Heat in Hindsight”
The Miami Heat came close to breaking the longest winning streak in the NBA. Simmons looks at the fallout and who “wins” and “loses” in the effort.
CHARLES P. PIERCE-“Bleu, Blanc et Rouge”
I had no idea that Charlie Pierce was a Canadiens fan!
KATIE BAKER-“The Ethics of a Family Plan”
Is it ethical to pretend that you are married to your roommate to get a family discount a ta gym? Hell yes.
EMILY YOSHIDA-“A Dark Force”
J.J. Abrams is going to direct the next Star Wars films. Why, when sci-fi is so multifaceted and so different is everything coming down to J.J. Abrams?
SEAN FENNESSEY-“The Case Against Justin Timberlake”
Timberlakes’s previous album was amazing. Then he took years off to make (bad) film and (good) TV. His star would only continue to rise if he stopped making music and only hinted that he would make another album. But the release of his new album (which isn’t that good) can only hurt him.
BRYAN CURTIS-“Waiting for Bettman”
While many New Yorker’s didn’t care about the NHL strike, Canadian writers camped out waiting for Bettman to announce the strike was over.
WESLEY MORRIS-“30 Rock Landed on Us” 30 Rock was many things, but it dealt with racial issues (at least between blacks and whites) better than any show.
RANY JAZAYERLI-“Fall of the Evil Empire”
The New York Yankees look like they won’t make the playoff this year (this was written in March and as of my writing this they have a slim chance at getting the wild card slot). It will be the firs time in a while, perhaps, just perhaps, it’s the start of a new drought for the Evil Empire.
BILL BARNWELL-“The Master Raven”
Ozzie Davis knows how to pick players for the Baltimore Ravens.
REMBERT BROWNE AND DUSTIN PARKER-The Best Chappelle’s Show Sketches of All Time”
Done as a series of cartoons (by Parker); Browne picks his eight favorites:
Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories: Prince
Wayne Brady’s Show
Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories: Rick James
Black Bush (especially now that Obama is president)
Clayton Bigsby: Black White Supremacist
Making the Band (P. Diddy)
The Racial Draft (Tiger Woods Now 100% Black)
The Niggar Family (uncomfortable and hilarious no matter how many times you watch it).
Once again, there’s another great issue of Grantland. Once again, I wish they would follow up on some of their speculative stories. But it’s fun to have a time capsule of events that occurred just a few months ago and yet which I have totally forgotten about.
And here’s the cover of The Outer Limits in non 3D style (which I haven’t see before)
As I said, this album’s art looks much better. And you can hear from the first notes that this album is better produced and is going to be a lot more interesting than the previous two. It’s hard to know just how much of a leap this is from Rrröööaaarrr because that album was so muddy–maybe there were gems of guitar chords under all that noise. Like the previous openings, there’s a sort of prologue to the album. But unlike the previous album’s swirls, this one is beeping with a computer voice announcing “we are connected”
The opening chords are heavy, but man they sound clear—like they weren’t recorded underground. You can also hear all of Piggy’s weird higher notes—he’s playing complicated chords, not just solo notes. And when the chorus of “Killing Technology” rolls around, it offers stop and start rhythms and Snake’s voice even goes up an octave at the end. But the first real indication that Piggy is on to something new comes in the bridge. Underneath the robotic voice, Piggy is playing some really strange-sounding chords. The story is that he had been admiring Robert Fripp’s guitar work and so he added some of those King Crimson-y angular weird chords to his repertoire. And he melds them perfectly with the heavy thrash that the band had been playing.
Lyrically also, this album has moved away from killing and headaches. “Killing Technology” while having “killing” in the title is a very different subject:
The star wars have started up
The new invention is coming out
Making a spider web over the atmosphere
To make them sure that we can’t get out of here
Computers controlling your functions
Seems like we got electronic alienation
Trading children for a new kind of robot
Waiting for the old people to disappear
Quite a departure from Rrröööaaarr’s “Fuck Off and Die”
Stand up, right now, kill
No pleasure, the pain comes down here
No return, don’t look back, there’s no tomorrow
And if you’re a fucker and don’t believe it
I’d say fuck off and die, fuck off and die
“Overreaction” leans more towards the heavier side—Snake screams a bit more—but the subject (nuclear disaster) is thoughtful. Then comes their first truly amazing song: “Tornado.” Not only building like a tornado, this song allows them to talk about violent imagery without resorting to bloodshed. It’s even scientific:
Cumulonimbus storms arrive
Lightning flashes a hundred miles around
Electrical collision course
Creates the elephant trunk
But the best part is the chorus—it’s simple enough (just the word Tornado repeated) but it’s completely catchy and sing-alongable with bright major key chords.
“Forgotten in Space” features some great drumming from Away—he’s really quite underrated both in speed and technique—which explands even more on later albums. “Ravenous Medicine” is another highlight—an interesting series of uncomfortable chords opens this track about scientific research. It’s a pretty fast, heavy song. Although not too complicated except for the occasional breaks as the story progresses.
“Order of the Blackguards” is another fast song, but this one has so many parts that if you don’t like one, just wait a few seconds for the next one. “This is Not an Exercise” ends the disc proper. The middle section has a great heavy riff. But it’s the beginning of the ending sequence which is so perfectly sci-fi that really sets the tone of the album and looks towards the next one. It’s cool to think of Piggy playing these spacey chords on his guitar. And when Blacky’s bass rumbles in to resume the song, it’s quintessential Voivod.
By th way, this disc is a concept album as well. There’s a “Killing Side” (the first three songs) and a “Ravenous Side.” The strange thing about the CD though is that they have added two tracks from their Cockroaches EP which is nice. But they put one song at track 4 (the end of side one). How odd to put a bonus track in the middle of a sequenced album.
The EP came out before the album and it has a slightly different feel from the album proper. Although as a step towards Killing Technology it’s perfectly in sync. “Too Scared to Scream” is heavy and has some interesting time changes—I love the way the song feels like it is crashing to a halt around 3:30. “Cockroaches” feels like more traditional metal. It opens with drums and Piggy playing a typical sounding metal solo. Then the riffing starts and it’s very heavy indeed. Even the staggered section near the end sounds like a mosh section more than the prog time changes that Voivod uses on the album proper. The song ends with Snake screaming as the cockroaches are coming. A good ending to the EP and a pretty good ending to the disc.
The whole album has a very mechanical and robotic feel—the chords that Piggy plays just sound like mechanical failure, it’s very well constructed and foreshadows the music of their future.
[READ: July 9, 2013] Grantland #6
Grantland #6 covers from Sept 2012-Dec 2012. Despite the short time frame, this is the largest issue yet. And it maintains all the quality that I’ve come to expect from the book/magazine thing. Which means, I love the writing (especially about people/sports I’m not that interested in). And it also means that the editing is typically crap. In this issue the editing was crap more because they simply forgot to remove mention of hyperlinks. At least I assume that’s why sentences like “See here for ____” are included in any given article. But yes, there are some very simple typos that Word would correct pretty easily.
But beyond that, I really enjoyed this issue. And I’m finding it amusing how much certain people and shows crop up in a given time frame. So this is a four month period and Kobe Bryant still dominates (there will never be an issue without at least one Kobe article). But this time Homeland is the big show (since Breaking Bad has been on hiatus I gather). Basketball remains the favorite sport here (even though they speak of football as being the most popular sport).
Chuck Klosertman and Charlie Pierce continue to write thoughtful (sometimes funny) articles. And I like how there is still talk of Jeremy Lin even if Linsanity has gone away somewhat. (more…)
This was Kiss’ second greatest hits collection (Double Platinum being the first). This was before there were literally hundreds of Kiss Greatest Hits collections. Seriously, look at the list on AllMusic. This was also the era in which bands would release a greatest hits collection and include one song to sucker fans into buying it. And we did.
Kiss also re-recorded a bunch of songs for this disc (something they would do many times in the future as well). I’m not exactly sure what has been re-recorded, although the one obvious change is that Eric Carr sings on “Beth.” But some of the other songs get tweaks as well.
As for the two new songs, it seems like maybe they were leftovers from the Crazy Nights sessions–they are poppy with keyboards. “Let’s Put the X in Sex” sounds a lot like Robert Palmer, which is pretty embarrassing. Although interestingly, the song itself seems to serve as a model for a couple of songs on Hot in the Shade (as if maybe they thought Kiss fans wouldn’t buy the greatest hits?). “(You Make Me) Rock Hard” is another okay song (which sounds a lot like another song on Hot in the Shade). Both of these songs are just filled with sex similes, I swear they have more than any other writers in the world. Both songs would be better without those pesky keyboards. I rather liked the songs at the time as they are both better than anything on Crazy Nights, although neither one has held up all that well.
And “Beth,” Kiss’ biggest hit, which may be largely forgotten by the general public by now, has Eric Carr on vocals. He sounds a bit like Peter Criss, but without Criss’ years of hard living in his voice. It’s a weird choice, although I understand it from a business standpoint–which is clearly more important than the music, right?
[READ: August 10, 2012] “Paris in the Twenties”
This story starts out with a paragraph that I found very confusingly written. There’s a very long sentence with several clauses that, after reading the story, make perfect sense, but which up front are more than a little confusing. The upshot of that paragraph is that in 1972, when the narrator was a senior in high school, a whole bunch of bad things happened to her in a short period of time–just before they were to hear which of the Seven Sisters had accepted them.
The catalyst was that her father threw a tumbler of scotch at the giant window of their penthouse apartment. The window shattered but did not fall and the glass came back into the room. The irony of course is that he had chosen the apartment for the gorgeous panoramic views those windows afforded. Her father had been riled up about the state of the world, and felt that the sexual revolution meant that monogamy was outdated.
Their father was also very conscious of wealth and was very conscious of appearing wealthy–even if “he usually had more credit than money and now had very little of either.”
The narrator escaped into fantasies of Paris in the twenties–she read A Moveable Feast and was determined to move to Paris even if the party was over decades ago. (more…)
I had seen St Vincent on Austin City Limits, and her juxtaposition of waif-singer with noise mongering guitar player blew me away. So I was a little disappointed when this album opened up with this gentle, practically 1950s sounding vocal and string line in “The Strangers.” It takes two and a half minutes, but the noise eventually comes and it totally changes the texture of the song. Of course now, “make the black hole blacker” is a fun thing to sing along with (and the lyrics in general are pretty great). “Save Me from What I Want” is another quiet song with a catchy chorus. “The Neighbors” has a great melody with interesting strings over the top of it. “Actor Out of Work” brings in some stranger sounds to the album.
There’s something interesting about the songs on this album, like the way “Black Rainbow” has these sweet string sections but for the end half builds a crescendo of tension. I also love that a seemingly delicate song can be called “Laughing with a Mouth of Blood.” Perhaps the strangest song on the disc is “Marrow” which has a strange horn section and the chorus: “H. E. L. P. Help Me Help Me.” “The Bed,” “The Party” and “Just the Same But Brand New” continue in this vein–like a Disney princess song with a horrible threat underneath: “Don’t Mooooove, Don’t Screeeam.” But that sense of princess who are slightly askew really resonates on this record. It’s not as willfully dissonant as her first record, but lyrically it’s a knife covered in cotton candy, it’s still a gem.
[READ: March 20, 2012] McSweeney’s #39
One of the bad things about having a job with actual work is not being able to write complex posts about compilation books. It’s hard to have your book open while bosses walk by. So, its been a while since I read this and I’ll do my best to remember it all. Incidentally, if you’re keeping track I skipped 38, but I’ll get to it.
Issue #39 is a hardcover and a pretty one at that. It has a front cover photo (as well as many interior photos) taken by Tabitha Soren. Yes, forty-somethings, THAT Tabitha Soren, from MTV who has a new career as a photographer.
This issue continues with the recent return of the Letters column (as the magazine and front matter become more serious the return of the Letters adds an air of silliness). (more…)
I really enjoyed Surfer Blood’s debut album. This EP is a little stopgap until the next one. Although the sound is unmistakably Surfer Blood–poppy hooks and a very recognizable singing voice, the band sounds a little bit different here. They haven’t lost any of their catchiness–there may be even more on the opener, “I’m Not Ready” (who doesn’t love when the guitar and vocals match each other?) “Miranda” has that fun thumping chorus that is always fun to sing along to.
“Voyager Reprise” moves away from the surf-styled songs of their debut into an alt-rock of the 90s sound–when guitars were noisy (until they were quiet for a bit) and guitar solos happened between verses instead of as the third verse. And “Drinking Problem” has a kind of early Depeche Mode (in vocals, not synths) feel–quite a departure from their debut.
In the way of EPs, the final two songs are remixes. I’ve never been a fan or remixes and these don’t do much for me, but i do wonder if they will have any impact on their future sound.
[READ: June 14, 2012] “Olds Rocket 88, 1950”
All this time I thought there were only five of these short essays in this sci-fi issue of the New Yorker. And yet tucked away near the back was the sixth one by William Gibson, a pioneer in science fiction.
Gibson’s recollection is of being a child and having everything seem like science fiction–something that is notably absent these days. Like the chrome trim on his father’s Oldsmobile Rocket 88, the prevalence of spacemen and space-themed ideas everywhere. Even the word Tomorrow was capitalized.
Then he recounts a personal incident. He got in trouble with his parents for arguing with an Air Force man. The man said space travel would never happen. But Gibson knew it would. How could it not? And science fiction shaped this worldview. Not that he believed the stories would come true, but that his entire mindset was that in the future “things might be different…and different in literally any way you could imagine, however radical.”
What a wonderfully freeing notion. To me, this sort of future-looking lifestyle accounted for the unprecedented achievements of post 1950 America. Now that we no longer think of tomorrow with a capital T, we don’t seem as enchanted by the future. Perhaps it was a naive outlook, but you need a certain degree of naiveté if you hope to do anything radically new.
Gibson ties in the sci-fi books he bought for a dollar to other fantasists: J.G. Ballard, Ursula K. Le Guin, Michael Moorcock, and how these thinkers weren’t all that far off from the likes of Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. And he believes that without science fiction, he might not have been interested in what these other radical writers had to say.
It’s a short piece, but it really made me wish for more chrome and space-age technology in our lives–when people weren’t afraid to dram big.
SOUNDTRACK: SQUAREPUSHER-Solo Electric Bass 1 (2009).
Yesterday I said that one Squarepusher CD was enough for me. I did some digging and found out that he has put out a whole bunch of CDs. And, to the surprise of me, at least, not all of them are crazy electronic music. This CD, as the title states, is a collection of electric bass solo songs. The songs were performed live as part of the Jazz à la Villette 2007 festival and were played on an electric six-string bass with no pedals or effects.
And that is all you get—serious solo bass songs. The man behind Squarepusher, Tom Jenkinson, is apparently a virtuoso musician (who knew?) and these songs really show off his chops (just listen to the insanity of “Seb-1.05” (catchy title, eh?)). He can play some impressive Spanish-sounding songs–that would probably sound better on a guitar, but sound more impressive on a bass (“Seb-1.06”). He’s got some great slap stuff going on (“Seb-1.03”), and he really knows from melody (also “Seb-1.03”). True, 12 all bass songs can meld into one another, but the crowd really loves it (and like a lot of things, seeing it is probably more impressive than just hearing it).
It’s not exactly “fun” listening (even if you love bass solos). Only 850 copies of the disc were released, so it’s not like they expected a big audience for this. But it is pretty neat to hear a) how good he is and b) that his main musical output is noisy electronic noodling. That gives me even more respect for his electronic output.
[READ: June 5, 2012] “The Spider Women”
Margaret Atwood is another author I wish I had read more of—and I’m getting there. I often wonder if I should just read an author start to finish and be done with him or her or if that just leads to madness.
Much like Miéville says in the previous essay, children don’t read genres, they just read what they like. I loved Atwood’s idea that “below a certain age, [children] don’t distinguish between ‘true’ and ‘not true,’ because they see no reason why a white rabbit shouldn’t possess a pocket watch, that whales shouldn’t talk, or that sentient beings shouldn’t live on other planets and travel around in spaceships.” After all, sometimes reality lives under the bed and has sharp claws. (more…)
[ATTENDED: May 18, 2012] Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
The last time I saw Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was in the mid 70s. My parents took me two years in a row (and I still have the program books somewhere to prove it). I didn’t realize that the circus was still around, to be honest. I knew about all of the other circuses, but RB&B&B (what an awkward name) seemed like maybe it just went away. Well, that is not the case—apparently once you have kids who are old enough to enjoy it, the circus comes to your town.
Or more specifically, to Trenton. We thought about going to the show back in March when it was in East Rutherford and Newark but that seemed too far (and pricey). When it came to Trenton (which was actually further than we anticipated) and I could get tickets for $15/ea, that was all I needed to hear.
If anything was worth $15 it was this circus. Indeed, the joy we got out of it was worth much more than $15.
If you’ve been following along here, you know we’ve been to a number of circus-type shows over the last few months, so we are jaded circus-goers at this point. But this show was called Dragons, and that’s hard to pass up, especially if you have a soon to be 7-year-old boy (and you used to play D&D). When as the show opened and several performers came out with dragons attached to the front of Segways, I knew this was going to be fun. And that it wasn’t the circus from 1977.
And yet, it kind of was. Because once the circus proper started, it had all of the elements of circuses of yore: elephants, tigers, trapeze artists, springboard jumpers, hoops of fire and more.
The theatricality was quite spectacular both old school (the ringmaster and clowns) and new school (remote controlled (I guess) platforms and floating screens to project pictures). And, yes it was all about Dragons–the ringmaster sang a long over the top song about being a dragon (I think–the sound was really quite poor). And they explained the four qualities of being a dragon (or maybe the four qualities you needed for the dragon to come out? That’s what seemed to happen anyhow). Each of the four qualities (Courage, Strength, Wisdom, Heart) was represented by a color and, tenuously, by the performers in a certain section.
And I cannot keep straight who exemplified which quality so, as my memory allows, here’s what we saw. (more…)
Con Limón was Hellbender’s final CD. It shows a lot more depth and variation than one would have expected from the debut. “Fake I.D.” opens really really quietly for two verses so that you have to turn it up loud. And then the song kicks in and explodes your speakers. There are more such dynamics on this song, including the verse ending on a high guitar note and pause that adds a bit of quiet punch to the otherwise fast song. “You Gutted Me with a Switchblade Shaped Like a Telephone” opens with some quietly spoken words (which I have not as yet been able to understand), but the verses and chorus have quite an emo feel. “Long Distance Phone Bill Runner” has a catchy chugging riff with some screamy vocals. “Untrusted You” introduces acoustic guitar (and a cool off-key note). The vocals sound like Bob Mould. Indeed the whole thing has a kind of Hüsker Dü feel to it. “I-95 is Tattooed on My Brain” also opens slowly, with dark, quiet lyrics and a cool riff once the guitar kicks in. The guys clearly have a way with song titles.
“Song About Some Girls” is perhaps one of the cheesiest songs I’ve heard in a long time (although as one reviewer points out, it does anticipate radio friendly emo by about a decade). Coming from Hellbender it is super-cheese. I’m surprised they allowed it to be released (and I’m surprised it wasn’t a huge hit). Check out the lyrics (and this coming from a band with two lyricists who are currently published authors): “This is a song that I wrote about some girls/That I met at the beach back when I had the Jeep.” Really. And the chorus is a series of staggered “Right” “Right” “Right” “Right.” It is so insanely catchy–I hate myself for liking it so much. (The lyrics to their other songs are much better).
“Graveyarded” returns to the more angry type of song, dark with interesting riffs. It’s a fitting ending to the last release by this under appreciated (they don’t even have an entry in allmusic?) band. Oh wait, there’s a bonus song on the disc. After a few seconds of silence, there’s a strange bass-heavy riff (and kind of dancey drums). The lyrics are all spoken (I won’t say rapped). It sounds nothing like them, but I’ll bet they had fun making it.
[READ: May 21, 2012] “Fun Won”
Sometimes a title confounds you until you see it in the context of the story. I couldn’t even figure out how to say the title (which isn’t hard, but looks so peculiar) until I read it from one of the characters. I also had no way of anticipating what this story might be about.
Imagine my surprise that it was about the 90s, and about a woman who worked for Conde Nast, when money and drugs were plentiful and the fun never stopped.
It’s funny how context is everything. If I had read this story in the 90s, I would have hated everyone in it for their glamorous life, their quarter pound of weed, their expense accounted fancy dinner and even the fact that they work for a fashion magazine (Gaultier and Naomi Campbell are name-checked). And yet now that the bubble has burst and the fun has stopped and I never got to be a part of it (not that I would have…but still), I read this story almost wistfully.
This story is set up in a tricky way. Meaning that it starts out by talking about marriage but then shifts gears. The marriage discussion is all about how her friends married such squares in the 90s (while now women marry interesting men who have job but are defined by their hobbies). And it is a nostalgia piece for the 90s (“when you could still dream of being a writer, when writing for magazines and then writing books and all of that added up to a good life.”) [Sigh].
For background we learn that the narrator, her brother and their father were big dopers (their mother abstained–from the dope and the family). Her brother Ed is visiting from California with a quarter pound of awesome pop (this was before everyone had access to awesome pot). The bulk of the story concerns this visit. Ed and the narrator get high, then they share the pot with Marni (who is famous, although whose actual title is unstated–she’s the one who calls Gaultier). They end up all going for dinner at a fancy restaurant (with shaved truffles).
They also meet the narrator’s boyfriend who is a real estate mogul–he sells building for tons of money (and yes, is likely the reason the bubble burst). And then they go to a record studio to hear a famous singer make her album and watch it get mixed. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: FRANKIE VALLI AND THE FOUR SEASONS-“Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” (1967).
This was our wedding song. Sarah and I took ballroom dance classes and we choreographed a dance to this song using the moves that we knew. And that is one of the things people still talk about our wedding. It was a fun and feisty dance.
Six months before that I proposed using this book. I can’t remember what the actual book was that I cut up and modified–it would be interesting to see if I ever wanted to read it.
I drew my own cover (full of personal secrets), made an inside cover with our photos and even put some blurbs on the back. And then I glued the pages together and cut out an opening for the engagement ring. (There’s also a page of personal stuff that you aren’t allowed to see).
I Just Read About That... 