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Archive for the ‘NPR/PRI/PBS’ Category

George Saunders–“Elliott Spencer” (New Yorker, August 19, 2019)

Posted in Amnesia, George Saunders, Huh?, Humiliation, Language, Lizzo, Memory, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence on August 19, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LIZZO-Tiny Desk Concert #872 (July 29, 2019).

Obviously everyone knows who Lizzo is.  I had only recently heard of her and had heard amazing things about her live show. I even tried to get us tickets when she played the TLA, but it was sold out (good for her..I’m quite certain she will never play as tint a venue again soon).

Once we opened the room, there were as many people as we’ve ever had at a Tiny Desk concert, hanging on Lizzo’s every word as she held court and waited for the cameras to roll. She literally needed no introduction; one of us usually says a few words and gets the crowd to applaud for the start of the performance, but Lizzo was master of ceremonies from the second she walked in. Naturally, she needed all of two seconds to blow everyone’s hair back once more.

She starts out saying, “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. So I think I’ll do it today.  At this Tiny-Ass Desk.”

Lizzo belted out “Cuz I Love You,” the title track from her wonderful new album, with nothing off her fastball; if you were standing six feet away at the time, you’d swear the gale force of her voice was blowing your hair back. She was the star and the mayor rolled into one, at once ingratiating and commanding.

Lizzo’s voice is truly amazing.  A powerful instrument in which she can hold a long powerful note for a really long time.

Lizzo usually performs with dancers and a backing track; the former, though much-missed here, stood in the crowd and bobbed along… [while the backing] band assembled, at Bob Boilen’s request, just for the occasion.

Lizzo looks back at keyboardist Devin Johnson and says “Devin’s into this shit.”

After the song she says,

I’m crying cuz I love you but sometimes I’m crying cuz you get on my fuckin nevres.  Niggaz ain’t shit sometimes.  Bitches ain’t shit sometimes too and all the nonconforming genders in between you can be ain’t shit too.

There’s some great funky bass (Vernon Prout) and drums (Dana Hawkins) during “Truth Hurts.”  Walter Williams adds some quiet but nice melodies throughout.  And her singing the deep bum bum bum dad bum bum is really fun.

Then came

the literal and figurative show-stopper, “Juice,” which gave her the opportunity to pick up the flute she’d been waiting the whole set to bust out.

I had no idea Lizzo played the flute but she plays an awesome solo that adds so much to a song that I’ve heard so many times.

Lizzo was a lot of fun and very funny and wow, did she impress me wit her voice.  I now wish more than ever that I’d gotten a chance to see her in the tiny club.

[READ: August 18, 2020] “Elliott Spencer” 

George Saunders tends to write things in rather unique ways.  Sometimes it’s just in the concept that he is working worth.  Other times it is the way he presents it.  In this case it is both.

This story starts out in a very hard-to-read fashion:

Today is to be    Parts of the   Parts of my

Sure, Jer  Please do  Point at parts of me while saying the name of it off our list of Words Worth Knowing

Agespot

Finger

Wrist

What the hell is going on?

It is clear that whoever the narrator is, he or she or it is learning.

Next, Jer teaches the narrator Bellow and then the words to below: bastard, Turd, Creep, Idiot.

Then Jer informs 89 that from now on, 89 will be known as Greg.

Then Greg is on Job One.  They go to trees, but something is wrong

Our tree.in our HandiPic has squirrel No squirrel at all near these trees!

Greg and the others line up to shout the four words at the others.  They are across the river.  This river is actually police looking nervous. (more…)

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Ian Boothby & Gisèle Lagacé–Exorsisters: Volume 1: Damned If You Don’t (2019)

Posted in Demons, End of the World, Explosions in the Sky, Funny (ha ha), Gisèle Lagacé, Gods, Graphic Novel, Ian Boothby, NPR/PRI/PBS, Parenting, Son Lux, Supernatural, Superstitions, Surreal, Tiny Desk Concert, YA Books on August 10, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: AMONG AUTHORS-Tiny Desk Contest # 878 (August 9, 2019)

A lot of the time when I say I haven’t heard of a band, tons of other people have.

But I’m expected to say I don’t know who Among Authors is because as of this performance they are unsigned and self-managed.

They make a kind of artful indie prog rock. Two lead guitars, a simple drum kit, and piano.  All centered around pianist Ian Ketterer’s amazing voice.

Out of more than 6,000 entries to our 2018 Tiny Desk Contest, Among Authors was one of the most original bands I’d seen — so much so that we invited the group to perform as part of our Tiny Desk Contest tour in Seattle. I was even more impressed by Among Authors’ songwriting and keen, spare musicianship at that KEXP-sponsored event, so I invited them to play a Tiny Desk concert. By the time their big day came, nearly a year later, they were ready — nervous, but ready.

They play three songs, each one longer than the last.

“Radio Signals” opens with just piano and Ian Ketterer’s soaring falsetto–he sounds a bit like Ryan Lott from Son Lux.  After a minute and a half Patrick Brockwell adds some gentle brushed drums and both guitarists play different intertwining melodies.

Ian Ketterer sat behind our upright piano, partially hidden by his hair and hoodie. Patrick Brockwell’s clean look provided a stark contrast, and his no-frills, perfectly placed rhythms matched his appearance. The two guitarists, Jon Livingston and Jason Ketterer (Ian’s brother), played intertwining melodies, often lifting the songs from their dimness while embracing the mystery in the lyrics.

“The Overture” opens with all of them singing oohs–they have great voices.  The guitar parts are not unlike the slower parts of Explosions in the Sky–fast high notes in repeated melodies that interweave and sound amazing.

The blurb says that these songs aren’t catchy. And that’s true.  These aren’t earworm pop songs.  Yhey are intense and inviting.  I’ve listened to this Tony Desk more than many others.  It’s impressive when Brockwell hits his low drums (floor tom, I assume) how deep it is–there’s not a lot of bass in these songs so the low notes really stand out.  And Ian’s voice is really quite amazing–he gives this his all.

“Lure” opens with lovely intertwining guitar lines.  When the main part of the song kicks in, the thumping drums and fast piano really propel the song along.  It’s fantastic.  The song runs about 8 minutes with an extended instrumental outro that is dynamite.

Just to add some even more fascinating detail to this band

Nearly a dozen years ago, at 23, bandleader Ian Ketterer had open-heart surgery. Born without a thumb on his right hand and deaf in his right ear, he plays piano and sings.

I don’t know how hard it was to overcome any of that, but he (and the rest of the band) certainly did.  I’m going to have to look for this CD.

[READ: August 2019] Exorsisters Vol. 1

I saw this book in the store during an Image comic book sale.  I loved the title and was blown away by the art.  The whole premise seemed like a lot of fun.

I love the way the story doesn’t explain the set up for several chapters, it just jumps right in at a wedding.

As a pretty redhead is about to marry a handsome blond, dude, chains comes out of the ground and pull the man into hell.

Everyone in the audience believes that she was stood up, but she saw him get grabbed by a demon.

Then we meet twin sisters Cate and Kate.  Cate is prim and Kate is a rocker.  Lagacé’s artwork is perfect from the start.  They are distinct but similar.  Her whole style is almost like an Archie comic, but less sweet.  I love it.

The girls promise to investigate.

Meanwhile, we see a woman who proves to be their mom.  She bets a guy in a bar that she has done something worse than he has. We don’t hear what she has done, but she clearly beat his horrible tale. (more…)

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Jim McCann, Rodin Esquejo, Adrian Alphona, Sonia Oback–Mind the Gap: Vol 1: Intimate Strangers (2012)

Posted in Death, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Graphic Novel, Hospitals, Huh?, Jim McCann, Mac Miller, NPR/PRI/PBS, Rodin Esquejo, Series, Sonia Oback., Thundercat, Tiny Desk Concert, Ty Dolla $ign, Unfinished series, Violence on August 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK–TY DOLLA $IGN-Tiny Desk Concert #877 [August 8, 2019]

On the year anniversary of Mac Miler’s Tiny Desk performance, Ty Dolla $ign and his band were doing a Tiny Desk Concert.  This is an except from it (the full show is supposed to be uploaded but as of April 2020 it still isn’t).

I don’t know the original at all, but what is interesting to me is the phenomenal guitar work Justus West and the always wonderful Thundercat on bass.

Last week, Ty Dolla $ign visited NPR headquarters to record a fantastic Tiny Desk concert of his own that will air in its entirety soon. But once we wrapped the taping, something special happened: I reminded Ty that he sat at the desk almost a year to the day that his friend, Mac, delivered what would be one of his final performances.

The band paused and huddled. They mulled over a few notes in a matter of seconds then gave me a signal that they were ready. The room was silenced and the cameras started rolling again.

Here’s Ty performing a moving rendition of his 2016 collaboration with Mac, “Cinderella” from Mac’s fourth studio album, The Divine Feminine. Ty’s flanked by two close friends of Mac, Thundercat on bass and Justus West on guitar, both of whom played at the Tiny Desk with the Pittsburgh-born rapper a year ago.

The rest of the band includes Cory Henry and Aliandro Prawl on keys, Mike Moore on drums and Ant Clemons on vocals.  It’s a very moving performance.

[READ: August 2019] Mind the Gap 1

I saw this book in the library and was intrigued by the title and the frankly fantastic/al looking cover image by Rodin Esquejo and Sonia Oback.

I had no idea what the story was about and I was frankly surprised by the plot and the way it was massaged.

The story opens with a woman, Jo, getting a call from her friend Elle, but it quickly gets disconnected.  Jo calls Dane and asks if Elle is with him. She says Elle sounded strange in the call and she was worried.  Soon enough Elle (Ellis) is brought into the hospital unconscious.  The next page we see her floating in an otherworld.  She can’t remember her name but she sees her body in the hospital. (more…)

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Bryan Lee O’Malley, Leslie Hung–Snotgirl: Green Hair Don’t Care (Vol. 1)

Posted in Allergies, Ap Bio, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Crosby Stills & Nash, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, CSN, CSN&Y, David Crosby, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Huh?, Leslie Hung, NPR/PRI/PBS, The Lighthouse Band, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfinished series, Unfunny, YA Books, Yuck! on August 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DAVID CROSBY & THE LIGHTHOUSE BAND-Tiny Desk #876 (August 7, 2019).

I had more or less assumed that David Crosby was done with music.  He seemed more of a punchline than anything else lately.  He hadn’t put out much in the way of music in the last decade or so.  But the new Lighthouse album was getting some positive reviews.

It seems odd that he’s never been on a Tiny Desk before, but then again, he hasn’t done much lately to warrant it.  Nevertheless, here he and his band are.

Moments before the first note at the Tiny Desk, David Crosby needed the mics rearranged: He asked that his microphone be positioned evenly with the rest of his band mates, rather than in front of them, explaining that while his name is the one on the marquee, The Lighthouse Band has no hierarchy.

That band is an inter-generational ensemble, featuring Snarky Puppy bandleader and bassist Michael League, as well as guitarist Becca Stevens and keyboardist Michelle Willis, both accomplished singers and songwriters in their own right. They all first came together while the members were collaboratively writing and recording for Crosby’s 2016 album Lighthouse. Everybody sings in this band, trading lead vocals for harmonies and vice-versa in just about every combination.

The Lighthouse Band sounds fantastic and Crosby really does take a back seat to the younger musicians.

“What Are Their Names” is a political song sung in a capella style.  It is short and smart

I wonder who they are
The men who really run this land
And I wonder why they run it
With such a thoughtless hand
What are their names
And on what streets do they live
I’d like to ride right over
This afternoon and give
Them a piece of my mind
About peace for mankind
Peace is not an awful lot to ask

Crosby sings lead on “Looks In Their Eyes.”  His voice still sounds pretty good–although he’s not pushing too hard.  Becca Stevens has a wonderful high voice.

Before “Other Half Rule” Crosby says that this is a song about asking women to take over the world–you couldn’t possibly do any worse.  Michael League sings lead (his voice is much better than Crosby’s).  Becca and Michelle sing the second verse and sound terrific together.  The design of this song is very CSN&Y and you can certainly hear their voices in the harmonies.  I also really like the part where Becca plays a lead riff on the electric 12-string in between strums from Michael.

Then they play the classic “Woodstock” with a new arrangement but still wonderful harmonies.  This is a fantastic song in any version and this version is pretty great.

[READ: August 2019] Snotgirl Vol. 1

I loved Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim books.  The whole story was funny and the artwork was great.

This series is written by O’Malley, so it has a lot of the really funny moments like Scott Pilgrim did.  But it is drawn by leslie Hung, so the style is very different.

Hung’s drawing style is quite pretty, which befits the character-a fashion blogger.  Now, Scott Pilgim took O’Malley’s style and made the humor exaggerated.  Hung’s more pretty style is a contrast to O’Malley’s content.  It kind of works, although it almost deemphasizes the humor.

So what we have is a story about a vapid LA fashion blogger and, honestly, its not that interesting.  Scott Pilgrim was a loser, but his story was funny and interesting.  But Lottie might be too vapid to be interesting. Lottie’s biggest problem is that she has allergies (hence Snotgirl).

Is it possible to build a story around that?  Possibly not.

It starts with O’Malley’s humor as he introduces the characters.  Each woman gets a tag:

Lottie Person; Fashion Blogger; Style: effortlessly chic; Age: 25 3/4

Then her two best friends:
Megan Foster “Normgirl”; Style: boring, normie; Age 23? 27? don’t care
Misty Sutton “Cutegirl” Fashion blogger; Style: too cute; Age ???

She has to give everyone a nickname because she can’t keep anyone straight otherwise.

Then we see the first crisis of Lottie’s life.  Her ex-boyfriend Sunny Day is now dating her former intern, Charlene.  Charlene is younger, but thankfully not cuter.

While Lottie is freaking out about this she meets a pretty woman, Caroline, who orders the same weird coffee as her.  Lottie calls her “Coolgirl.”  Coolgirl knows of Lottie and follows her blog.  Coolgirl is an aspiring fashion blogger herself (good grief how many are there?).

Coolgirl is so cool, she forgot her phone and she’s living her life anyway.  Who does that?

Lottie goes to her allergist, but it’s a new fellow, a hot young guy who gives her a new experimental drug.

That night she meets Coolgirl at the bar (Lottie doesn’t normally go out). She has an allergy attack and runs to the restroom to hide her snot and take her new pills.  But Coolgirl barges in on her to se that she’s okay.  She laughs and calls Lottie “Snottie.”  Lottie seems to black out and when she wakes up, Coolgirl is dead on the floor.

But the next day (Lottie has no memory of getting home) there is no word of a dead girl anywhere in the news.  She;s pretty freaked out until her new intern, Esther Dumont (Style: my intern; Age unpaid) arrives to make all of Lottie’s problems go away.  [It’s staggering to think that Lottie would have an intern].

Lottie goes out for coffee with her “friends,” the haters club.  Charlene works at this coffee shop.  [I love that Charlene looks like Heather my favorite character from AP Bio, although this is from 2017, so its clearly a coincidence].  Charlene puts Lottie milk in her coffee (Lottie is lactose intolerant, of course) and that’s the last straw.

Then there’s a new character introduced, a detective.  His name is John Cho (no relation to the beloved actor).  Hes 27, and rising star with the LAPD. Now that he’s been made a detective he can unleash his greatest skill: Fashion!  This is such a wonderful O’Malley joke and delivery, that I wish it paid off more.  Cho is a huge fan of Lottie’s blog and believes her to be perfect in real life.  Their paths will cross later.

Later that night at a party Charlene and Sunny Day are there. Charlene is wearing one of Lottie’s old dresses (Esther the intern sold it to her).  Lottie gets right in her face and yells “Take everything. Take my dress, take Sunny, you’re nothing but a stalker and worse than that, you’re a fake!”

But when Charlene says she saw Lotte go into the bathroom with the pretty girl and she knows what Lottie did, well Lottie can’t deal and she pushes Charlene into the pool.

And yet just as things seem their worst, Lottie gets a text from Cool girl.  She is at the party too.  She’s not dead.

On New Year’s Eve, Lottie goes out.  Charlene is there and she drunkenly pulls up her dress at Lottie and says, “I’m wearing your panties!”  There is a buzz around the room until Lottie has to tell everyone that they are not hers, she designed them.

Moments later, Lottie is talking to Charlene on the roof.  Charlene is in tears and Lottie feels like she wants to help this crazy girl.  But as the new year chimes in Coolgirl sees the two of them and jealously pushes Charlene off the roof.

What kind of story is this?

I found this book really hard to read.  Not because of the text girl speak (although that was annoying) but because the characters are so unpleasant and dull.  The first few chapters were meant as exposition I guess, but they were expository of characters that were hard to distinguish and seem ultimately irrelevant.

And again, the concept that Lottie’s biggest concern is allergies is hard to imagine as the basis for a story.

I’m not dying to read the other two books, but I want to give O’Malley the benefit of the doubt.

 

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Dave Eggers–This Bridge Will Not Be Gray (2015)

Posted in Barack Obama, Bridges, Children's Books, Dave Eggers, Funny (ha ha), Irving Morrow, Joseph Strauss, Leon Moisseiff, NPR/PRI/PBS, San Francisco, CA, Tiny Desk Concert, Tucker Nichols on August 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BAS-Tiny Desk Concert #875 (August 5, 2019).

I’ve never heard of Bas, but he performs a surprisingly upbeat-sounding set of songs for lyrics with so many curses.

Bas, the Paris-born, Queens-bred MC delivered an energetic and comical set.  Just like his lyrically impressive and sometimes dance-inducing Tiny Desk — peep his headbanging and seated sambas throughout — Bas always balances his bravado with a relatable sense of humility.

The four songs are from his third studio album, Milky Way.

“Barack Obama Special” starts with this fascinating lyric:
This one is dedicated to
My bitch ass neighbors, haha, yeah
‘Cause I’m living better now, better now
Bitch I’m living better now
Yeah
I had to move ’cause neighbors so racist

But he makes sure to clarify

“My new neighbor’s mad cool. So shout out to Peggy.  Peggy be picking up my mail when I’m on tour.  I don’t want her to watch and be like I thought you was such a nice young man.”

The song segued into “Purge” which starts with a simple but cool sounding guitar riff from Nathan Foley.  Sweet keys are sprinkled over the top.  Mereba and Justin Jackson provide gentle backing vocals.  Ron Gilmore adds some very cool bass lines from the keys throughout all the songs.

“Designer” has some cool off tempo synth lines and ends with a ripping distorted Prince-like guitar solo.

The song finishes with a bouncy instrumental section and Bas says, “I feel like I just won the whole circuit in Mario Kart.  Where’d you get that music from?  Don’t get me sued.  Nintendo coming for us.”

Ron Gilmore then plays a fun little circus music riff and Bas says, “Nintendo cut the check!”

Throughout the set, Johnathon Lee Lucas on drums is a lot of fun to watch as he’s got a whole array of drums and pads to play.

They are having so much fun they almost forget to play the last song “Tribe.”  This one ends with another nice instrumental jam which Bas says went on for much longer than they rehearsed–that was cool.

[READ: August 1, 2019] This Bridge Will Not Be Gray

Dave Eggers has written all kinds of books through his career.  This was his first children’s book (with cut-out art by Tucker Nichols).

Eggers is from San Francisco and he loves his home city.  This book is a love letter to the Golden Gate Bridge and the area that inspired it.

I honestly had no idea about any of the information in this book, so it was educational for me as well.

For instance, I did not realize that the passageway between the bay and the ocean was called The Golden Gate.  Thus, that’s why the Bridge is named that, not because it was supposed to be gold. (more…)

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Dave Bidini–Midnight Light: A Personal Journey to the North (2018)

Posted in Athanaskan, Books about writers, Calle 13, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Corb Lund, Culture Shock, Dan Mangan, Dave Bidini, Délı̨nę, Northwest Territories, Dené, Dog Sleds, Domestic Violence, Drinking, First Nations, Folk on the Rocks Festival, Friendship, Funny (ha ha), Homelessness, Humiliation, iLe, Non-fiction, NPR/PRI/PBS, Politicians, Prison, Puerto Rico, Regrets, Relationships, Religion, Research, Revenge, Rheostatics, Rush, Sahtú, Science, Sexism, Sexual Assault, Sports, Supernatural, Superstitions, Tanya Tagaq, Terra Lightfoot, The Globe and Mail, The Sun, The Telegram, The Yellowknifer, Tiny Desk Concert, Toronto Star, Travel, Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Violence, West End Phoenix, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories on August 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: iLe-Tiny Desk Concert #874 (August 3, 2019).

It’s not very often that you hear a song that is all percussion.  But the first song of this set is only percussion and (Spanish) vocals.

iLe is a singer in the Puerto Rican band Calle 13.  Her most recent solo album Almadura:

is filled with metaphors and allegories about the political, social and economic conditions in Puerto Rico.

When vocalist Ileana Cabra Joglar and her band visited the Tiny Desk, they’d just arrived from the front lines of the historic demonstrations taking place in Puerto Rico. Two days earlier, they were part of a crowd of tens of thousands who were on the streets calling for the resignation of embattled Gov. Ricardo Rosselló. (Rosselló recently stepped down, effective August 2.)

Right from the start, it was clear what was on iLe’s mind in her song “Curandera” — “I am a healer / I don’t need candles to illuminate / I bring purifying water to cleanse / Removing pains so they never return” — as congas and percussion shook the room with an Afro-Caribbean beat.

This is the song in which all of the band members play percussion–primarily congas although Ismael Cancel is on the drum kit.  While everyone plays congas, it is Jeren Guzmán who is the most accomplished and who plays the fast conga “solo.”

In the chorus of the slow-burning “Contra Todo,” iLe sings about channeling inner strengths and frustrations to win battles and remake the world. Her lyrics are rich with history, capturing the spirit of the streets of San Juan even as she stood, eyes closed, behind the Tiny Desk. Her entire performance is a startling reflection of this moment in Puerto Rican history.

“Contra Todo” has a rich deep five string bass from Jonathan Gonzalez and two trombones (Joey Oyola and Nicolás Márquez). Two guitars (Bayoán Ríos and Adalberto Rosario) add a kind of percussive strumming and a quiet song-ending riff.  Jeren Guzmán plays the congas with mallets, something I’ve never seen before.

By the time iLe and her band launched into “Sin Masticar,” they’d already captured the full power of protest, as their musical arrangements raged with the intensity of a crowd joined by a shared cause and pulse.

“Sin Masticar” has a super catchy chorus, perhaps the best way to get people involved in a protest.

[READ: August 2019] Midnight Light

Two years ago Dave Bidini co-founded The West End Phoenix, a newspaper that is for people in Toronto’s West End.  It’s print, it’s old school, and it’s pretty awesome.  I don’t think I’ve ever been to the West End, but I find the writing and the content to be interesting and really enjoyable.

It’s no surprise that Bidini has worked in journalism and loved and hated it.

I’ve always loved newspaper: the smell of the ink and the rough of the newsprint weighted in my hands, their broadsheets flapping like Viking sails.  When I was a kid, our family read them all–the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, The Sun, and before that The Telegram–at the kitchen table with each person drawing out whatever they needed: comics, sports, business, entertainment (and yet never Wheels, the Star’s automotive supplement).

He started writing before he picked up a guitar.  When he was 11 he submitted a poem about a hockey player to The Sun‘s “Young Sun” section.  It was accepted and he won a T-shirt.

In 1991, he was asked to write a regular column for a Star satellite weekly called Metropolis.  The day his first piece was to be in print he waited at the nearest newsbox for the delivery man.

But he had no stamina and fewer ideas and he was eventually let go.  Which led to writing books.  But he still wanted to write for the paper and then he remembered: Hey, Yellowknife had a newspaper.

This book is about journalism.  But it’s also about the Canadian North.  And while the journalism stuff is interesting–and the way it ties to the North is interesting too, it’s the outsider’s perspective of this region of the world (that most people don’t even think about) which is just amazing to read about–the people, the landscape, the conditions.  It’s fascinating. (more…)

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Elizabeth Strout–“Motherless Child” (New Yorker, August 5 & 12, 2019)

Posted in Colin Greenwood, Jeff Buckley, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Parenting, Radiohead, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on August 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TAMINO-Tiny Desk Concert #871 (July 26, 2020).

Tamino is a 22 year-old singer of Belgian, Egyptian and Lebanese descent.

I didn’t know anything about him.  But the blurb mentions his voice.  As soon as I read Jeff Buckley and I heard it in the middle part of the first song I knew it was right on.

His voice is powerful and can really soar.  For “Habibi,” (a song about a sweetheart) it starts with just him and his guitar.  He plays a simple, quiet, repeating guitar melody.  After a few verses, he adds the low strings on his guitar.  The song has been so devoid of bass up until now that it’s hard to imagine it coming from that guitar. Vik Hardy adds repeating piano lines that create a tension that continues throughout the song.

Tamino fills this song with yearning in his voice, much the way Buckley did.  And the end of the song has him hitting some gorgeous ethereal high notes.

His use of that falsetto had some faces in the NPR audience gasping in astonishment.

The songs performed at the Tiny Desk by the 22-year-old singer come from both a 2018 EP titled Habibi and later that year an album titled Amir.

The second song, “Indigo Night” (about despair turned to joy) stars in a similar way–quietly with just a little guitar and Tamino’s amazing, deep vocals.

Colin Greenwood (yes, of Radiohead) plays bass on this song, adding some nice lines to the moody piece.  There is definitely a Radiohead feel.  The blurb lets us in on a bit of personal humor:

The Radiohead bassist shared a brief text exchange with his son, basically telling his hugely accomplished dad that playing the Tiny Desk was “the coolest thing he’d ever done!” That made us all smile.

Midway through the song, as Tamino’s voice wordlessly soars along with the guitar melody, it feels even more like a Radiohead song, except with a more impressive voice than Thom Yorke’s (sorry, Thom).

Tamino’s grandfather was Muharram Fouad, a well-known Egyptian singer known as “The Sound of the Nile.”

The final song, strangely called “Tummy” starts with Tamino’s almost plucked guitar style.  He learned on his grandfather’s guitar.  He gets such an interesting sound out of the instrument.  Ruben Vanhoutte adds some simple drums to flesh out the sound.

It’s a truly impressive set and he has a truly impressive voice.

[READ: August 5, 2020] “Motherless Child”

Olive Kitteridge is an older woman with a grown son.  The son is married with children of his own.  They have been rather estranged for the last few years.

But Christopher was finally coming to visit his mother with his wife and children. But they were late.  In fact, Olive had lunch set up for them, but Christopher had just called to say they were going to eat lunch on the road (it was two P.M.) and that they wouldn’t be there for a few more hours.

Olive had been taking things down in her house–it looked almost bare.  Her husband had died three years ago and she was ready to move on.  She just hadn’t told Christopher yet. (more…)

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Samantha Hunt–“Three Days” (New Yorker, January 9, 2006)

Posted in Cab Calloway, Death, Drinking, Drugs, Easter, Horses, Lorenzo Cromwell, Masego, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Samantha Hunt, Short Story, Thanksgiving, Tiny Desk Concert on August 4, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MASEGO-Tiny Desk Concert #870 (July 24, 2019).

Naturally when I saw this guy’s name, I assumed Massive Ego.  And he does seem to have a massive ego.  But he totally earns it.  And I’ll agree with this allusion:

Imagine for a moment if Cab Calloway, the Cotton Club’s exuberant bandleader, was reincarnated in the 21st Century. Now imagine if he was dropped in the middle of the music world of today. He’d no doubt be a tall and slender, silky-wearing goof ball with a moisturized braid-out, instruments inscribed as knuckle tattoos and a penchant for genre-blending. Yes, the spirit of Cab lives on in Masego, the singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist who surprised NPR’s Tiny Desk audience with a zany sense of showmanship and a demonstration of his own genre, TrapHouseJazz.

Masego gets five songs (and over 20 minutes…come on!), but the whole set is fun and flows really nicely with Masego acting as the great frontman he is.

First, before opening with the jazzy “Tadow,” Sego pulled off a quick, mini-prank by sending his friend, comedian Lorenzo Cromwell, up to the mic before stepping forth himself.

Cromwell wears a Michael Jackson glove and plays a fake saxophone (the credits state: comedic saxophone).  But Masego plays a proper saxophone, smooth and jazzy.  Then he starts singing and he has a nice smooth voice too.  Lex Nelson adds some nice call and response backing vocals.

Throughout the song, Maxwell Hunter plays some excellent grooving sliding five string bass.

This next song, “Nayhoo” he says “white people love it.”  It opens with some fantastic guitar work from Melanie Faye–she plays amazing guitar licks throughout the show.

Next, Sego tossed up 100 dollar bills with his face on it and beckoned the crowd into a call-and-response of “hi-di-hi-di-hi-di-ho.”  (There’s the Cab Calloway).

Up next, is “Queen Tings.”  He points to Jon Curry and says “You.  Show me that junk you showed me yesterday.”  Curry stars playing a nice beat.  Masego says, “Now gimme that shoulder” and Curry starts swaying his shoulder into it.

Midway through the song Masego plays a saxophone solo.  Then keyboardist Dan Foster picks up a saxophone and plays a solo as well.  Then the two play together and it sounds fantastic.

Before the fourth song he says, “there’s black people here, I got a song called ‘Black Love.'” Then he points to the keyboards.  “You.  Play some keys for me.  This is Dan Foster.  He has a flower tattoo.”  The melody of this sounds a lot like the melody for “Careless Whisper.”

All these instruments you see here are tattoos on my knuckles because I can play them all.  That’s why he wrote this song, “I Do Everything.”  This song is pretty good but the best part is when he introduces Melanie Fay and she plays a ripping guitar solo.  I wonder what else she’s been in.

Finally, to have a few more moments of fun after “I Do Everything” — and to prove he really does do everything — Sego juggled water bottles to the rhythm of the luscious music his band providing.

Masego is a lot of fun and I enjoyed his set a lot more than I expected to.

[READ: July 31, 2019] “Three Days”

I enjoyed the way this story started but hated the way it ended.  I hope it’s an excerpt, because there’s so much more that could be done with all of this and yet so much was wasted on a dead horse.

Beatrice is walking to her mother’s house from the bus station.  The house is actually a farm, but not a working farm. It is the only remaining farm in the area, since all the other farms sold out to to the box stores.

The farm is in disrepair.  I like this detail:

There are some withered Duane Reade Easter decorations–a hip-high bunny rabbit and a bright-green egg–wired to the front porch.  It is Thanksgiving.

Her parents weren’t farmers and as soon as they both agreed they didn’t want to farm, they gave up and got proper jobs.  Beatrice’s mother loved her work.  She was employed by “Mythologic Development, which turned myths and sometimes history into marketable packages used for making new products and ideas more digestible to the consumer public.”

I love this idea and want to learn more about it. Although the examples her mother gives about Atlantis and Montezuma are disappointing. (more…)

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Colin Barrett–“The Alps” (Harper’s, August 2019)

Posted in Colin Barrett, Drones, Funny (ha ha), Futility, Harper's, Jacob Collier, NPR/PRI/PBS, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, UFOs, Violence on August 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JACOB COLLIER-Tiny Desk Concert #869 (July 22, 2019).

I’ve never heard of Jacob Collier, but wow is he an impressive figure.

the North London 24-year-old can hardly contain his creative energy. It comes out in his wardrobe and most definitely in his music, but it’s not misdirected or out of control. These are intricate and precise compositions, like a ship in a bottle made of thousands of planks of wood, yet light enough to sail in a breeze.

He starts with “Make Me Cry.”  Collier plays a fascinatingly deep-sounding acoustic guitar (with amazing flourishes).  But the biggest shock comes when he sings.  He has such a deep sonorous voice.  The backing vocals (from Becca Stevens–who also plays the charango–and MARO on the acoustic guitar) are high–a real contrast to his voice. That is until he switches to piano (while still holding the guitar) and then his voice reaches the high notes as well. Drummer Christian Euman adds some nice xylophone bells to the song as Collier’s voice soars impressively.

After the first song he says “I’ve spent the last year or so making four full length albums [called Djesse].  I don’t know why, its quite exhausting. But its fun.  Each is it’s own musical universe.”  All three songs today are from Vol 2.

But another example of his excess is this:

This year he covered Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s “Moon River” by recording himself 5,000 times and working in 144 other vocal submissions, and then he printed and sold signed copies of his Logic Pro audio session for fans while on tour.

“Feel” opens with a simple drum pattern and everyone giving some gentle oohs before Jacob plays a slow piano motif.  Robin Mullarkey switches from acoustic to electric bass.  This song is a more jazzy composition with some lead vocals from MARO (Collier sounds great doing backing vocals as well).

Before the final song,”It Don’t Matter” he explains that he wrote this song about five days ago specifically for this event.  It starts with him making a fascinating array of sounds with his mouth–clicks, hisses and water droplets–and then adding percussive elements like the top of the piano. Then he plays a funky bass line on the tiny acoustic bass.   Becca Stevens gets a lead verse.  And the middle of the song has a melodica solo.

Virtually every combination of band members harmonizes at some point in the show. It’s reflective of his philosophy on music as a connecting tool, to use the instrument we all possess, which drew me to his art in the first place. And as if to make good on those beliefs and bring all of us into one moment, he invited the crowd to sing the final lyrics of the concert together.

The NPR employees are always good sports (and have good voices) so the end of the show is a good one.

[READ: August 1, 2019] “The Alps”

I noted the last time I read a story by Colin Barrett that he writes about Ireland and drugs.  This story was also about Ireland.  But not about drugs.

It’s also not about the Alps as you might expect.

In this story, The Alps are three brothers: Rory, Eustace and Bimbo.  Bimbo was 37, the other two in their fifties.  They claimed to be tradesmen, but none of them have a trade.  Rather they painted, wired, tiled and plumbed at a competitive rate.  They ate too much take out, and downed vats of Guinness.  They traveled together, they worked together, they drank together.

As they pull into Mikey’s pub, Bimbo sees a light up in the sky. It’s behaving strangely and for a minute I thought this story was going to be about UFOs.  But instead, Bimbo realizes it’s a drone surveying the landscape.  Its owned by Landry, a rich man with a lot of land. (more…)

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Lydia Davis–“New Things in My Life” (Harper’s, August 2019)

Posted in Flash Fiction, Harper's, Lydia Davis, Memory, NPR/PRI/PBS, Priests, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on August 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PRIESTS-Tiny Desk Concert #868 (July 19, 2019).

[UPDATE: Priests effectively broke up in December 2019, which is a major bummer].

I saw Priests live back in April and they were fantastic.  This Tiny Desk Concert was no doubt filmed around this time (although singer Katie Alice Greer’s hair wasn’t blue when I saw them).

This Tiny Desk really shows how different a band can sound in this setting.  When I saw them, they were loud and slinky, with a real punk flair.

This show is so much calmer.  The addition of their accompanist Mary Voutsas on piano really changes the whole sound of these songs.

Indeed, the request of an upright piano was the last thing I expected when singer Katie Alice Greer and guitarist G.L. Jaguar talked about doing a Tiny Desk Concert. But we wheeled the Yamaha upright in place and they invited their accompanist Mary Voutsas to join bandmates Daniele Yandel and Alexandra Tyson. What we have is a kinder, gentler and starker version of this great band.

Priests played only songs from their personally groundbreaking, genre-stretching album The Seduction of Kansas.

“Jesus’ Son” starts with Alexandra Tyson’s deep rumble of a bass.  She’s not their original bassist, but she fit in perfectly when I saw them and here.  Katie Greer’s voice sounds great and you can hear the lyrics more clearly here.  The biggest surprise is the subdued sound of guitarist G.L Jaguar.  He can play quietly but he also roars at times. But here, most of the melody comes from the delicate piano rather than his guitar.  Although he does get a quiet guitar solo.

“The Seduction of Kansas” sounds the most different here. It still opens with the great bass line, but the recorded version is very electronic and seductive.  This stripped down version sounds so much more clean, it’s odd but cool.

I’m glad that drummer Daniele Yandel was invited to come out from behind the kit to sing “I’m Clean” (with Greer on drums).  This song is slower with echoing guitars.  Yandel doesn’t sound dramatically different from Greer.  In fact, Yandel’s singer voice sounds a lot like Greer’s lower register.  In fact, when Greer sings the backing vocals (call and response), they sounds almost exactly the same.  It’s cool.

I’m so glad that I got to see them, and that they did this Tiny Desk before they broke up.

[READ: August 1, 2019] “New Things in My Life”

This is another of Davis’ short pieces that seem so much like Lydia just telling us her thoughts that I’m not even really sure what to call it (short story, memoir, thought.

Davis says it takes her a long time to get used to new things in her life.  So much so that, if she is tried, she will inevitably call her new husband by her old husband’s name.  And when she is very tired she can hardly remember the new husband’s and son’s names. (more…)

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