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Archive for the ‘All Songs Considered’ Category

McSweeney’s #11 [It Can Be Free/We Are as Surprised as You Are/Bring Light/…And [x] is free] (2003)

Posted in A.G. Pasquella, Alison Smith, All Songs Considered, Antlers, Ben Greenman, Benjamin Lytal, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Books about writers, Brent Hoff, Culture Shock, Daphne Beal, David Means, Death, Decadence, Demons, Denis Johnson, Doug Dorst, Dow Mossman, Emilio Oliveira, Environmentalism, Essays, Excerpt, Fears, Ian McDonnell, Jeffrey Rotter, Joyce Carol Oates, Marriage Trouble, McSweeney's, Military, Political Humor, Politicians, Robert Olmstead, Russia, Samantha Hunt, Sean Warren, Short Story, Stephen Elliott, T.C. Boyle, Threats, Tom Bissell, Trevor Koski, Violence, Yuck! on December 19, 2012| 2 Comments »

11SOUNDTRACK: THE ANTLERS-Live at the Black Cat, Washington DC, May 11, 2009 (2009).

antlersI mentioned that I was uncertain about my appreciation of this band.  And I wondered how they would hold up to a longer show.  The answer is surprisingly well.  The sound quality of this set isn’t great–the levels seem way too loud (not sure if that’s the band or the recording) and I really can’t understand the words, but the music is very moody and evocative and I like it quite a lot.

This set comes from the album Hospice, which is a concept album about a person dying of bone cancer (with lyrics like “they told me that there was no saving you” and song titles like “Kettering”).  Earlier descriptions made me think the album was a major drag to listen to– I mean the subject alone is exhausting–but musically it’s a different story.  There’s lush strings and interesting guitars.  And, at least live, the band can make a holy racket.

I’m a little surprised by the number of keyboard errors in “Atrophy.”  I mean an occasional bum note is fine, but there’s a bunch in that track.  It’s very weird.  But that is made up for by the vocals which are angsty and impassioned, especially on the final song “Cold War.”  The NPR site has three tracks available for viewing and I must say that watching the band is more exciting than just listening to them.  But I have really gained an appreciation for The Antlers.

Check out the show here.

[READ: December 16, 2012] McSweeney’s #11

This crazy title for this Issue/Post comes because the cover and spine of the book are all text.  Indeed, the book is gorgeously bound in black leather(ish) with shiny gold print.  Each author gets a summary of his or her work and a note that he or she is free (see each story below).

I did not read Issue #10 yet because it came out as a thrilling paperback, and I’ve been putting it off for a reason even I can’t quite fathom.  I anticipate reading that one last.  Again, no idea why.  In some ways, Issue #11 picks up where Issue #9 left off.  There’s lots of text on the cover, there’s letters and everything else that makes it look like McSweeney’s.  But as I said this one seems more somehow.  It’s the hardcover.  And, it’s also the DVD that accompanies the book.  I have a hard time believing I’ve owned this book for almost ten years and never watched the DVD but I finally got around to it.  More on that soon.

This issue contains letters, fiction, non-fiction and a play that picks up from Issue #9 (more…)

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McSweeney’s #41 (2012)

Posted in Aimee Bender, All Songs Considered, Boredom, Cassandra C. Jones, Chris Flynn, Death, Deb Olin Unferth, Drinking, Drugs, Eileen Van Neerven-Currie, Essays, Excerpt, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gracia Lam, Henry Bean, History, J. Malcolm Garcia, Jess Walter, Jesus Christ Superstar, John Brandon, Jowhor Ile, Kelsey Dake, Letters, Marriage Trouble, Matt Rota, Max Shoening, McSweeney's, Memoirs, Native Americans, Racism, Robots, Ryan Boudinot, Sex, Short Story, Sibylla Brodzinsky, Steven Millhauser, Swans, Tara June Winch, Thomas McGuane, Tony Birch, Track, Violence, Viveca Mellegard, War on December 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »

41

SOUNDTRACK: SWANS-Live at All Tomorrow’s Parties, October 2, 2011 (2011).

swansatpBefore Swans released this year’s amazing The Seer, they toured supporting their previous album (with a number of songs from The Seer included). This set has two songs from The Seer, “The Apostate” and “The Seer, Pt 1” together they comprise 50 minutes of the nearly two hour show.  The set also includes “No Words No Thoughts” (24 minutes) and “Jim” (a teeny 6 minutes) from 2010’s My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky.  The final track is an eleven minute version of “I Crawled” which goes all the way back to 1984’s Young God EP.

I would never have thought of Swans as a jam band, and yet here they are, with 5 songs in 2 hours.  Although unlike jam bands, they aren’t showing off their musical chops or noodling solos, they are created expressive and moody soundscapes–not as scary as in days of old, but very intense nonetheless.

The set sounds great, although I imagine this would be more enjoyable to watch than to listen to (there a great swaths of music where there’ s not a lot happening).  I wonder what Gira is doing during these stretches.  My friend Phil (or Phillipe Puleo as Gira calls him here) plays drums on the album and on this tour, and I have to say he must be exhausted–man he hits the drums hard.

I listened to this show before I heard The Seer, but it didn’t prepare me for what the album would contain.  Now having heard that album, I appreciate this live show even more–they really master these long songs.  I am going to have to try to see them the next time they swing by.  I admit I used to be afraid at the thought of seeing them because their early music was so intense, but this seems to be a different Swans now, one that an old man like myself could even handle.

The set is no longer available on NPR.

[READ: December 10, 2012] McSweeney’s #41

The cover of this issue has a series of overlapping photographs of lightning.  I didn’t really look at it that closely at first and thought it was an interesting collage.  Indeed, Sarah said it looked like a science textbook of some kind.  But when I read the colophon, I learned that Cassandra C. Jones finds photographs of lightning and (without manipulating them digitally) places them together so that the lightning bolts create shapes.  And indeed, that is what is going on.  And it’s amazing!

The cover’s pictures create a greyhound running (front and back covers show different stages of the run).  There’s also circles and a rabbit running.  It’s incredibly creative and very cool.  You can see some of her work at her site.

The feature of this issue is that there are four stories from Australian Aboriginal Writers, a group that I can honestly say I have never read anything from before.  There’s also beautiful art work accompanying most of the longer stories, three gritty non-fiction pieces and some letters, most of which aren’t very silly at all.

LETTERS (more…)

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Simon Rich–“I Love Girl” (New Yorker, December 17, 2012)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Anachronisms, Art, Death, Funny (ha ha), New Yorker, Pg. 99, Sex, Short Story, Simon Rich, Violence on December 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_12_17_12Sorel.inddSOUNDTRACK: PG. 99 Document #8 (2005).

doc8In yesterday’s post I talked about a pg. 99 concert in which they played the entirety of this album.  Since the album is available for streaming (and download) at Robotic Empire, I figured I’d give it a real listen.

While there’s no mistaking that this is the same band, I was surprised by just how nuanced this recording proved to be.  That almost seems like a joke because it is a blistering punishing punk album, but there are a lot of moments where the band is quiet and there’s only one instrument playing, or when you can actually hear lyrics.

The disc opens with a sampled quote about “Playing whatever you want as sloppy as you want.  As long as it’s good and has passion.”  This album is not sloppy at all–it’ s very noisy and chaotic, but the chops are there–the band is very precise.  I also like the unusual guitar sounds in “Your Face is a Rape Scene.”  “The Hollowed Out Chest of a Dead Horse” sounds much better on album than live–you can really hear all of the diverse parts and the interesting tones that the lack of noise produces.  And the ending is really quite beautiful (maybe if it has been in the middle it could have broken up some of the pummeling).

There are two more songs on the album than were played live.  In the concert, the singer said  that they only learned  those seven songs, which may well be true.  I love the title of the one extra track, “The Lonesome Waltz of Leonard Cohen.”  The Final Track, “The List (FILTH)” has a completely different recording style and sound, so I assume it must be some kind of bonus track.  Indeed, some research tells me that these are both bonus tracks, which makes sense as the end of “Horse” does sound like an album ender.

[READ: December 13, 2012] “I Love Girl”

I’ve said before that I really like Simon Rich’s super short jokes.  And I’m a little less enamored of his longer jokes.  This one was three pages and there was a lot to like about it, but something that kind of bugged me as well.

This “story” is about Oog.  He’s a caveman (duh) and he speaks like a caveman (which mostly means leaving the word “a” out before nouns).  Oog is Rock Thrower.  Oog is not too smart–he can’t make words good and although he understands the numbers one and two, he has trouble with three and four.  And forget about five.  But Girl is smart.  And once in school Girl helped him with his math by saying that four was just two twos.  He still doesn’t understand what she meant.

Oog loves Girl.  But Girl belongs to Boog.  Boog is an artist.  He draws pictures of horses and demands respect from everyone.  He also has sex with Girl right in front of everyone. (more…)

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James Stokoe–Wonton Soup (2007)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Canadian Content, Food, James Stokoe, Oni Press, Pg. 99, Pranks, The Future on December 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »

wonton

SOUNDTRACK: PG. 99-Live at The Black Cat, Washington DC, August 31, 2011 (2011).

Ipg99 don’t know anything about pg. 99 but this was a reunion show that they headlined (even though their set is only 25 minutes long).  This concert is the entirety of their album Document #8 (from 2005),   pg. 99 plays noise noise noise so much noise.  It all sounds a bit like a blur with screamed vocals ad thundering drums.  In fact, the drums are really the only thing that lets you know there are tempos and time changes in the songs.  As befits a loud band whose songs you can’t understand, Pg 99 have wonderful song titles like “More Complicated Than a Sci-Fi Flick” (2 minutes long).

There are some distinctly more complicated sections than just hardcore like in “In Love with an Apparition” which has a quiet opening (for about 2 seconds).  And in the middle of the song, there is a much quieter part with just gentle guitar and vocals (although I still cannot make out any lyrics).  “Your Face is a Rape Scene” (no idea if that’s an offensive title or not as I can’t hear the lyrics), starts with a cool rumbling bass solo before being overtaken by the chaos of the band.

The show proves to be kind of funny because the singer is constantly telling the crowd that the show is over (“last number guys” after three songs), they play three songs that last just over a minute each “Life in a Box,” “Ruiner of Life,”  and “We Left as Skeletons.”  Those are followed by the two-minute “Punk Rock in the Wrong Hands,” a kind of call and response of noise.  “Ballad of Circling Vultures” starts off kind of like a ballad, with slow bass notes and feedback that continue for over a minute before the final minute is breakneck hardcore (with apparently everyone screaming something different).

It’s also funny to me how polite the band is–thanking everyone so much for coming and telling everyone to be careful on the way home (the weather was quite bad).  Obviously the band doesn’t want their fans to get hurt, but it’s nice to hear them say so.

The set ends with the surprisingly long “The Hollowed Out Chest of a Dead Horse,” which clock s in at over 6 minutes.  Amid the noise and chaos there are some melodic sections too.  You can hear the whole 26 minute set here.

The whole of Document #8 is streamable here.  It’s not that different from the live set although you can hear lot more of the dynamics there (but really not any lyrics).

[READ: December 12, 2012] Wonton Soup

This graphic novel is billed as a “Space Trucker Opera,” and indeed it kind of is, but it’s more like Iron Chef in Space.

The novel is set in the surprisingly not too distant future when space is colonized, aliens are everywhere and different species intermingle with regularity.  The main characters are James Boyo, a punky/gothy looking guy with really darkly lined eyes (this effect is used quite a lot in more underground comics and although I don’t fully understand it, I do like it) and Deacon Vans, a dreadlocked space truck driver who only has sex on his mind (the age for this book is 13+, which might even be a little young for some of the language in the beginning of the book).

As the story opens, the pair are on a delivery, but Boyo is more interested in finding the perfect Wonton Soup, which is rumored to be at a particular joint out in space.  They prepare the Wontons in the precisely perfect way (stuffing the space chicken’s head tendrils into its body before cooking it).  But Boyo can’t enjoy his Soup because the first bite that he eats contains a metal probe which sends an urgent message from the captain of a ship under attack.  The receiver of the message is the chosen one!

He pushes the beacon to the guy next to him and walks out.  (That cracked me up). (more…)

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Adam Blade–First Hero [The Chronicles of Avantia #1] (2010)

Posted in Adam Blade, Adventure, All Songs Considered, Children's Books, Fables, Fantasy, Fears, Magic, Mates of State, Short Books, Supernatural, Threats on December 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »

first herpSOUNDTRACK: MATES OF STATE-Live at the 9:30 Club, Washington DC, April 4, 2009 (2009).

mos930I enjoyed the Tiny Desk show from Mates of State quite a lot.  And this concert which is a full band (and occasionally just the husband and wife duo) was equally fun.

They play 15 songs in about an hour, some are short but there are a couple longer ones as well.    The band plays big songs with large hooks–a couple of listens and you are singing along with them.  They perform a kind of orchestrated synth pop, and while the songs are sweet-sounding, there is more to them than just hooks.

Most of this concert comes from their 2008 album Re-Arrange Us.  There’s a few tracks from  2003’s Team Boo as well.  All in all it’s a great show.  There are a bunch of songs on here that should be huge, they’re so catchy.  But Mates of State remain under the radar.  Discover them here.

[READ: November 3, 2012] First Hero

After finishing the available Beast Quest books, I learned that there was another Avantia series called The Chronicles of Avantia (four books so far).  Since Clark enjoyed the Beast Quest series so much, we decided to check this one out, too.

Well, wow is it a different beast altogether. First off, the book is much bigger.  Second, the words are more complicated and third, the action is much more violent.  This is not your second grader’s story of trudge, trudge, trudge, defeat (but not kill) the beast and then gain a prize.  Rather, our hero must avenge his father’s death before the villain literally destroys the cities of Avantia looking for the Mask of Death.

The action takes place long before the action of the Beast Quest series–so long before that they may as well not be related except for the land (although we haven’t heard of these towns either).  Even the beasts are different.

The main character in this series is a boy named Tanner.  He is the Chosen Rider of a phoenix-Beast called Firepos.  What’s interesting is that some of the story is told from Firepos’ point of view.  The main bad guy in the story is a guy named Derthsin.  Derthsin killed Tanner’s father (when Tanner was 7) and also kidnapped his mother.  There’s nothing too explicit about the death (except that Tanner witnessed it–yipes!)  The death is revisited and is certainly uncomfortable reading to a  7-year-old.   Tanner was raised by his grandmother Esme.  Esme, too, is killed by Derthsin (this one of a bit more graphic and Tanner is present) and boy was that awkward. (more…)

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Stephen Marche–“Flesh and Numbers” (The Walrus, December 2012)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Canadian Content, Conor Oberst, Death, First Aid Kit, Joan Baez, Prostitution, Sex, Short Story, Stephen Marche, The Walrus on December 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

decwalrusSOUNDTRACK: FIRST AID KIT Live at Newport Folk Festival July 28, 2012 (2012).

jacobs-folkfest-44I discovered First Aid Kit through NPR and I liked the two or three songs so much I bought their album, The Lion’s Roar.  And here’s a full set at Newport Folk Festival.

There’s three members of First Aid Kit, two sisters and a boy drummer all from Sweden.  I don’t know if coming from Sweden has any impact on their singing, but their voices are extraordinary  especially when they harmonize.  “Blue” is one of their great songs and it sounds amazing live.

They also do a stunning cover of Joan Baez’ “Diamonds & Rust,” and on their final track, “King of the World,” Conor Oberst gives a guest vocal (he’s on the album too).

Lyrically, the band is interesting too.  I love the premise of “Emmylou” and the phrasings in “The Lion’s Roar.”  In this show, they dedicate “Hard Believer” to Richard Dawkins, so the band are definitely not lightweights.

It’s a great set and a wonderful introduction to this compelling Swedish band.  I hope they get some more airplay in the States.  You can check it out here.

[READ: December 10, 2012] “Flesh and Numbers”

Stephen Marche publishes a lot of stories in The Walrus, and I find that I’m hit or miss about him.  And, indeed, I was even hit or miss about this story.  I feel that Marche is often trying to go for shock in his stories–and this one has two kinds of shock in it.

The first is that a husband pays his wife for a blow job.  (A bright red Canadian $50).  And later he starts paying her a $50 every time they have sex.  This all begins because she wants to buy a pair of boots that she deems too expensive.  The story kind of looks at the idea of prostitution and power roles in marriage, but only glancingly.

The story talks about their financial situation (they are both successful, although there is a marked discrepancy in who makes how much and how they divide up the bills).  But once this casual money-for-sex situation arises, she finds that she is enjoying the feeling of getting the money.  Indeed, since he always pays with a red 50, she stars getting mildly turned on whenever she sees them in her daily life.  They both find that they are having sex more and doing more interesting things in bed.  In fact, hen the new iPad comes out she offers anal sex as an option for more cash. (more…)

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David Gilbert–“Member/Guest” (New Yorker, November 12, 2012)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Boredom, Cocteau Twins, David Gilbert, Humiliation, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, Swimming, Wye Oak on November 30, 2012| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_11_12_12Tomine.inddSOUNDTRACK: WYE OAK-May 29, 2011, Sasquatch Festival (2011).

wye oakI don’t know all that much about Wye Oak.  This concert from Sasquatch has a very shoegazery vibe–like a more sultry Cocteau Twins.  This concert has a vibrancy and bounce that I like quite a lot.  The first half of the show comes from their most recent album Civilian.  Singer Jenn Wasner’s voice has a deep resonance that makes it sounds like high notes are not easy for her, but she manages them anyhow.   The songs are mostly a kind of indie rock, with fuzzy guitars.  Although “Dogs Eye” is a lot heavier with an interesting keyboard sound tacked on top.

The older songs aren’t quite as dynamic or interesting, even in this setting.  The whole show flows really well, but the beginning is a bit more exciting.

The strange thing is that her speaking voice sounds so southern when they’re just from Baltimore.

[READ: November 28, 2012] “Member/Guest”

This story is about Beckett, a fourteen-year old girl, and her friends.  They are members at a resort in the Hamptons, a resort they have been coming to since she was little.  I rather liked this description of her friends, “They were like a favorite TV show that had gone all ridiculous, yet you stayed tuned, hoping that the silly plots would get better.”  But rather than getting better, the girls were talking about what was in the shorts of Brad Sawyer and Justin Miller.  Natalie, the sexual oracle, (she showed them a Trojan the other day) predicted that it would look like Barbie’s leg.

The girls are naughty and vulgar (and rather funny).  Clio says they should all get out their Barbies for practice–their moms would be so happy to see them rediscovering their childhood toy!  There’s another funny sequence when Beckett sees her parents.  Her dad calls her toots and her mom mocks him saying “I didn’t know we were suddenly at the Copa.” (more…)

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Ian Frazier–“A Farewell to Yarns” (Outside, November 2012)

Posted in Adventure, All Songs Considered, Birds, Black Sabbath, Earth, Essays, Fishing, H.P. Lovecraft, Ian Frazier, Judas Priest, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Outside, Technology, Unreliable narrator on October 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: EARTH-All Tomorrows Parties, October 5, 2011 (2011).

Anyone who likes Black Sabbath a lot knows that they were originally called Earth.  About mid way through this concert, the lead singer/guitarist of Earth says that he grew up listening to Black Sabbath and reading HP Lovecraft, so Earth is clearly something of a tribute.   Incidentally, he grew up in Manalapan, NJ which is just down the road from us.

All of these bona fides means that I should love Earth.  But I have to say that although I didn’t dislike this show at all, it’s really not my thing.  Earth creates long droney songs.  I tried to measure a couple of BPM of songs and came out with 60 for one song and 42 for another (by contrast Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law” is 180 BPM).

The songs are all instrumental and range from 8 to 12 minutes.  Again, nothing objectionable about that.  Indeed most of the songs are cinematic and cool sounding.  My problem with them is that there wasn’t a lot of dynamism in the songs.  The bass wasn’t crazy heavy or loud or chest rattling (as I had been led to believe Earth’s bass was).  The melodies were pretty, but it came across as soundtrack music–for a very very slow zombie chase, perhaps.

According to some basic history, Earth used to be a heavier, noisier band, but have morphed away from that, and I suspect I would have liked their earlier stuff a bit more (although the one older that they played, “Ouroboros is Broken” wasn’t that much different from the rest.

NPR broadcast most of the All Tomorrow’s Parties concerts, and I enjoyed listening to them all.  But Earth is just not my thing.  You can check it out here.

[READ: October 20, 2012] “A Farewell to Yarns”

I mentioned the other day that I read one complete piece in the three Outside magazines since I subscribed.  It was this one.  The thing that I have enjoyed about the Outside articles that I have cherry picked is that unexpected writers pop up to write an essay.  So here’s Ian Frazier, comedian and essayist, writing for Outside.  Weird.  (Or maybe not so weird, he’s an Editor).

And, unlike many of the other things I’ve read in Outside, Frazier is not, repeat not going to do anything brave or daring or stupid, he’s just going to muse about a topic.  I like it.

Basically, this whole piece is a compliant about how with everything documented and digitalized it’s impossible to tell fibs about the one that got away or as he calls it, “an outdoorsman’s sacred right to exaggerate.”  What I like is that he takes us all the way back to ye olde mapmakers who wrote Here be Monsters which leads to this wonderful idea that I have never considered “the pictures of the monsters must have been accurate; how would the mapmakers have known what to draw unless eyewitnesses had told them?”

And he moves on through those who spied the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.  He even talks about one I had ever heard of, a hidden city in Siberia called Gorod Koka-Kola, built during the cold war as a reproduction of an American city, they speak English and live and behave like Americans–perfect for spymasters to practice   Genius–and how would anyone ever know if it existed in remotest Siberia?

But Fraizer’s greater point is that “Lies make the wild scary and alluring.”  He grew up in Rural Illinois afraid of the Argyle Monster who haunted Argyle State Park–and, boy, how many adventures he had or dreamed of having back then. (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut–Timequake (1997)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Biography, Culture Shock, Death, Funny (ha ha), Futility, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Kurt Vonnegut, Marriage Trouble, Morality, Nada Surf, Short Books, Utopia, Violence on October 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NADA SURF-Live at KEXP January 30, 2008 (2008).

Nada Surf is criminally underrated and shamefully treated as a one-hit wonder for a song that sounds nothing like the rest of their work.

This four song set at KEXP features four acoustic renditions of songs from their wonderful  album Lucky.  The songs are stripped down, but the harmonies are all there.  The only song that really suffers in this format is “See These Bones,” which is a little less spirited than the recorded version (although the harmonies stand out even better).

They are also funny guys and very personable, as the interview shows.  This set is definitely worth downloading.  You can get it here.

[READ: October 6, 2012] Timequake

Timequake is Kurt Vonnegut’s last novel.  It is very much unlike any of his other novels because it is actually more of a fictional memoir than a novel.

There are two main characters in the book–Vonnegut himself and Kilgore Trout.  Vonnegut talks about his life a lot–and if you know anything about Vonnegut’s life, you know that the details in the novel are accurate.  At the same time, he talks about Trout’s life, specifically the end of his life and how he went from being a destitute bum to a celebrated and oft-quoted author.

And then there’s the matter of the timequake.  In 2001, there was the first timequake.  The world stopped expanding and moving forward and instead flashed back to 1991, where everyone picked up exactly where they were on that date in 1991, and relived every detail of their lives in exactly the same way.  Only this time they knew what was going to happen.  So every person lived on autopilot through every day for the next ten years–all the good and all the band (like the man who spent several years in prison and had to relive those years all over again).  Even the dead were resurrected and relived their days.

It’s an interesting concept and yet in the end it’s really not that interesting of a topic.  In the Prologue, Vonnegut says that he had originally written Timequake (which version he calls Timequake One) with that very premise, and that Vonnegut himself made a cameo. And yet I can see that it wouldn’t really have worked as a very good novel–unless he made up ideas for what happened to everyone and we the readers lived them for the first time– or something.

But so he bailed on that novel, but he certainly left parts of it intact for this one.  And rather than a cameo, Vonnegut features largely in this one. (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut–Hocus Pocus (1990)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Anarchy, Culture Shock, Death, Funny (ha ha), Futility, Kurt Vonnegut, LGBTQ, Marriage Trouble, Morality, Nirvana, Portishead, Prison, Public Enemy, The White Stripes, Utopia, Violence on October 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  PUBLIC ENEMY-Live at All Tomorrow’s Parties, Convention Hall, October 2, 2011 (2011).

NPR was cool enough to record and provide as a download most of the shows at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Asbury Park, NJ.  (Portishead wouldn’t allow their show to be recorded, sadly).  But Public Enemy was a welcome surprise!
This tour is in celebration of the anniversary of Fear of a Black Planet.  And they play most of Fear and a lot of other things too (with almost nothing from their 2000 era CDs.

I can remember back in the early days of rap that it was hard to imagine what a rap show would be like live since they didn’t play instruments and much of the music was sampled.  Well, PE has musicians on stage and they have DJ Lord filling in for Terminator X behind the turntables (big shoes to fill, but done largely well–especially his fun “solo” in which he samples The White Stripes and Nirvana–although he should have mixed in Portishead, no?).  And mostly they have the personalities of Chuck D and Flavor Flav.

I suspect that this show would be a bit more fun to watch than it is to listen to–Flavor Flav’s antics don’t always translate well without his visuals.    Like when he asks the audience if that can all say “Ho” (which he eventually holds for 33 seconds!), it seems like a delay tactic in audio, but is probably fun to witness.

What’s especially cool about the show is that PE play so many songs, including small snippets of songs as segues to other ones (like the seventy second version of “Anti-Nigger Machine” that intros “Burn Hollywood Burn” which is practically hardcore) or the minute and a half of “He Got Game” that follows “Night of the Living Baseheads.”  I like that they even threw in some skits from the record like “Meet the G That Killed Me” and “Incident at 66.6FM.”

But of course the real joy is the full length songs, “Brothers Gonna Work It Out,” “911 is a Joke,” and of course “Bring the Noise” and “Fight the Power.”

Some of the improv sections don’t work all that well, the guitar solo in “Power to the People” leaves something to be desired (Khari Wynn maybe a legend, but he;s no Vernon Reid),  although the  “Jungle Boogie” riff is cool.   But the improv with guest drummer Denis Davis was pretty bad ass.  Flavor Flav hopped on the drums and was quite good for “Timebomb.”  We also got to meet Flav’s daughter Jasmine.  And Professor Griff was there too.

It’s also interesting that they keep saying they have no time left in the set (Portishead is next) but they play for at least 30 minutes after this.  Including a wonderful “By the Time I Get to Arizona and the set ending “Fight the Power.”

Chuck D has still got it and Flav is just as crazy and fun as ever (even if his screams and yos seems out of tune from time to time).  Of course, Flav has to get the last word in by raging  on for six and a half minutes  at the end (and about six-minutes in the beginning as well where he gave himself props about his reality show.

It’s a really good set–a little distorted from time to time, but really solid.  Here’s a link to the downloadable show.

[READ: October 2, 2012] Hocus Pocus

This book may have put me over the edge in terms of Vonnegut exhaustion.  I bought this book some time in 1992, but I never read it. It’s been in my house for twenty years and it was about time I read it.

But as I’ve been noticing, each Vonnegut book has been getting darker and more misanthropic.  And this one is no exception.  The construction of the book follows Vonnegut’s cut and paste style but it feels even more shuffled and indirect than usual (more on that later).  In many of Vonnegut’s books, the “climax” occurs somewhere in the middle and he fills in the details later.  For this one, the climax came around h.and I wouldn’t have felt like I missed anything.

In this book, the main character, Eugene Debs Hartke  is a Vietnam vet (usually his protagonists are military men, and Vonnegut has criticized Vietnam a lot, but this is the first time he’s had a Vietnam vet as protagonist).  He married his wife and had a wonderful family until he learned that his mother in law had a disease that made her crazy–but it only kicked in later in life, after he married her daughter.  And that his wife has the same disease–so by the middle of the story both of the women in his life are crazy “hags.”  And, like in his other stories, his children hate him. (more…)

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