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Archive for the ‘NPR/PRI/PBS’ Category

Stephen Leacock–“Christmas Triptych” [The 2018 Short Story Advent Calendar #20] (1942, 1910, 1918)

Posted in Amy Grant, Babies, Canadian Content, Christmas Album, Death, Funny (ha ha), Hingston & Olsen, Parenting, Short Story, Stephen Leacock, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Tiny Desk Concert, War, World War I on December 20, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: AMY GRANT-Tiny Desk Concert #813 (December 17, 2018).

Amy Grant is “The queen Christian pop” and as such I have no use for her.

Amusingly this Christmas-themed Tiny Desk Concert was organized by Lars Gotrich who also loved death metal.

Lars explains his connection to Amy:

Growing up in the ’90s, there was never a Christmas without Amy Grant’s music. Home for Christmas, in particular, was a favorite around our household, its string-swept nostalgia wrapped around the family den like a warm blanket and a plate of cookies. So when I invited the Nashville pop singer to perform our annual holiday Tiny Desk, I had to bring my mom.

When I saw she was playing I feared the worst–bland inoffensive pop and offensive Christian music.  But rather, this Concert proves to be bittersweet with two songs about Christmas that welcome Christmas but also know that it’s not always perfect.

“As I’ve gotten older, sometimes I’ve realized the bravest thing you can do at Christmas is go home,” she tells the Tiny Desk audience after performing “To Be Together,” from 2016’s cozy, yet lived-in Tennessee Christmas. “Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is open the door and welcome everybody back.”

Her band sounds tight–piano and acoustic guitar and a cool five string bass.  Her backing singers do a nice job–and while it hovers along the line of too much for me, she reins it in nicely.  And “To Be Together” is really a lovely Christmas song.

And that’s when it all comes home for Amy Grant. “Tennessee Christmas,” written 35 years ago, takes on new meaning here — this was the first time she’s performed the song since her father died this year. You see her eyes glisten, and her voice catch on the final “tender Tennessee Christmas,” everyone feeling that wistful tenderness and offering some back in return.

If you don’t need therapy before Christmas…hang on you’re gonna need it after,

To shake out her sadness, Grant dons reindeer antlers (generously provided by someone at NPR because of course someone at NPR keeps festive wear on hand) and dashes through a delightful version of “Jingle Bells.”

This version of “Jingle Bells” is almost manic in its speed and juxtapositions of slow and fast.  It’s really great.

[READ: December 20, 2018] “Christmas Triptych”

Once again, I have ordered The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my third time reading the Calendar (thanks S.).  I never knew about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh).  Here’s what they say this year

Fourth time’s the charm.

After a restful spring, rowdy summer, and pretty reasonable fall, we are officially back at it again with another deluxe box set of 24 individually bound short stories to get you into the yuletide spirit.

The fourth annual Short Story Advent Calendar might be our most ambitious yet, with a range of stories hailing from eight different countries and three different originating languages (don’t worry, we got the English versions). This year’s edition features a special diecut lid and textured case. We also set a new personal best for material that has never before appeared in print.

Want a copy?  Order one here.

Like last year I’m pairing each story with a holiday disc from our personal collection, although I do love to include a Tiny Desk Christmas Concert like this one.

This is an actual Christmas story (or three) by the Canadian master of comedy, Stephen Leacock. (more…)

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Mariana Enriquez–“Spiderweb” (New Yorker, December 19 & 26, 2016)

Posted in Argentina, Dirty Projectors, Mariana Enriquez, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Road Trip, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on December 19, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DIRTY PROJECTORS-Tiny Desk Concert #809 (December 4, 2018).

In my head Dirty Projectors are a noisy, chaotic band who make weird songs.  But this Concert could not be further from that understanding.

The music is beautiful, the harmonies are outstanding and the instrumentation is gentle and pretty.

The blurb seems to suggest that the music is often quirky:

Dirty Projectors’ eighth album is often loving and forgiving. It’s full of the quirks of production and rhythm and rhyme that had me fall for their music when I first heard it about a dozen years ago.

and maybe some of their earlier music exaggerates the quirks.  But watching this band with their acoustic guitars and candles makes this a delightfully warm and sweet Tiny Desk.

When Dirty Projectors let us know they couldn’t make it to the band’s Tiny Desk performance until late in the day, we were sad because the clocks had recently turned back for the fall, we knew that our beautiful, natural light would be gone and it’d be dark. But with candles left over from a late-winter day performance by Rhye — and some LED panels and spots — we were set up right on time for David Longstreth to sing these words: “The sky has darkened, earth turned to hell / Some said a light got shined where darkness dwelt / So I won’t cry or collapse, overwhelmed / Time like a song just might rhyme with itself.”  What’s wonderful about this Tiny Desk Concert is watching these talented people arrange this complicated music without amplification and seeing the joy on their face when it all worked out.

The band plays three songs:

The first one, “That’s a Lifestyle” has such a delightful guitar melody.  I love it.  I also love that the three female singers sometimes harmonize, sometime follow and sometimes both.  Felicia Douglass (vocals, percussion, keys), sings “that’s a” over and over while Kristin Slipp (vocals, Rhodes, Wurlitzer), follows each instance with a series of words.  I also love that both Longstreth and Maia Friedman (vocals, guitar), are playing this wonderfully complex guitar section–while he sings leads and she contributes extra backing vocals as well.

“Right Now”  has a great middle section where Douglass sings the first “Now… Now” and then Friedman and Slipp harmonize the repeated “nows” after that.  Slipp plays an awesome little melody on the keyboard as well.  And all along there’s a rather complicated guitar going throughout.

Nat Baldwin (bass) switches between finger plucked and bowing on the upright bass to add yet more textures to the music.

“What Is The Time?” opens with a wonderfully complicated drum pattern (Mike Johnson) before settling down into more delicate folk.  There’s more gorgeous harmonies on the chorus and an amusing moment where the lyrics are “say hello” and Longstreth waves “Hey, NPR.”

All in all, this blew away all my expectations for Dirty Projectors and was a great Tiny Desk.  I’ll have to explore their music a little more.

[READ: January 18, 2017] “Spiderweb”

This is a very long story in which not a lot happens, but in which tension builds and builds between major characters.

The narrator goes to visit her aunt and uncle in Corrientes:

My aunt and my uncle were the custodians of the memory of my mother, their favorite sister, who was killed in a stupid accident when I was seventeen.

But the aunt isn’t happy about the situation: “You got married and we haven’t even met your husband!  How is that possible?  You’re hiding him from us?”  She explains: (more…)

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Zadie Smith–“The Lazy River” (New Yorker, December 18 & 25, 2017)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Joey Alexander, New Yorker, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Vacation, Wynton Marsalis, Zadie Smith on December 18, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JOEY ALEXANDER-Tiny Desk Concert #808 (November 30, 2018).

I‘d never heard of Joey Alexander before this show.  As is customary, I listened to this show for a while before I looked at it so I had no preconceived notions about Alexander.  He was just an amazing jazz pianist.

But I was also really impressed by the drums.   Kendrick Scott does some amazing things on the drums–the rhythms and sounds he gets from just a snare, bass, hi-hat and cymbal are wonderful.  And Reuben Rogers on bass keeps everything in line while the other two are just jamming everywhere.

But back to Alexander.  He has an amazing touch on the piano–the notes and frills are super fast and intense, and the chords he throws around are just great.  When you tune into the video, you can see that his fingers are miles long–he makes everything look effortless.

It doesn’t even matter that he’s 15, because honestly, the internet is full of teenagers who are amazing musicians. Although perhaps it is odd that a 15-year-old from Indonesia is playing jazz piano like nobody’s business.

When a baby grand piano rolls into the office for a Tiny Desk concert, you expect something special. But none of us could have imagined what it’s like to see 15-year old Joey Alexander play that piano with such mastery. The thing is, when you see him play live, you quickly forget his age and get lost in the intense focus of his performance. Alexander and his stellar supporting cast — Reuben Rogers on bass and Kendrick Scott on drums — form a tight trio, locking eyes as Alexander’s compositions unfold. The relaxed, seasoned veterans looked thrilled to be playing with Alexander at the Tiny Desk, and he was clearly inspired playing with them. The crowd was both mesmerized and humbled by the memories of what they were doing at 15.

Born in Indonesia, Alexander learned to play by listening to his father’s jazz albums. When he was just 10-years old, Wynton Marsalis invited him to play at a Jazz at Lincoln Center gala, and the young Alexander set the jazz world buzzing. He made his mark covering classics by Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane, but he’s now recording and performing more of his own compositions. He showcased that original work during his Tiny Desk performance. Alexander’s vigorously rhythmic playing was playful in the opening “Eclipse” (from his latest album of the same name), which he described as “spontaneous playing.”

It is fast and impressive the way he plays just about every note on the piano during the piece.

“Bali,” also from Eclipse, followed,

It is a much gentler piece, with Scott playing brushes.  The chord progressions are nice and there’s an occasional melodic riff that pops through.  There’s even an opportunity for Rogers to showcase his bass ability with a little “Solo” display.

“City Lights” (from his 2016 album Countdown) closed a set that ranks among the year’s finest jazz performances at the Tiny Desk.

This song is rambunctious and bouncy.  How much fun is it to watch both  Kendrick and Ruben (who are I assume both much older than 15) cheering on Alexander with jazz grunts and yeas of approval.  Scott gets a nifty little drum solo too.

All in all, it’s a great show.

[READ: January 14, 2018] “Lazy River”

This story is written as a metaphor and a reality.  It is set at a vacation resort in Almeria, “Somewhere in Southern Spain”.

Sadly, yesterday the river was green which made everything seem quite unnatural.

The narrator speaks of floating in the resort’s Lazy River and how, much like life, you can just float around in the Lazy River over and over, an ouroborous.  Some people like to assist the ease of things with flotation devices.  Others, less tattooed, often university educated, like to try to swim against the current–they are usually defeated by it fairly quirky.

The narrator and her compatriots (the “we” of the story) are British.  They hope to beat the resort by drinking the cost of their trip in alcohol–don’t tell anyone.  There is nobody French or German there so they can skip the paella and swordfish and eat all of the sausages and chips they like.

They have not been to the Moorish ruins or the mountains.  They are on vacation and will float on the river and not be judged.

The only people not lazing around are two bosomy girls–they lie out and sun themselves all day–constantly checking on their tans.  They put a lot of effort into the photos of themselves–setting the scene, clearing the garbage, working hard to make everything appear perfect,

Maybe a lazy river is the perfect metaphor for life.  Maybe the a trampoline is even better:

Life’s certainly an up-and-down, up-and-down sort of affair, although for children the downs seem to come as a surprise—almost as a delight, being so outrageous, so difficult to believe

There’s also a blood-red moon “don’t look at me, Southern Spain has the highest ratio of metaphor to realty of any place I’ve ever known.”

But clearly the resort workers are the actual workers the ones who had traveled long and hard to work here–the African hair braiders or the man who has to clean up the lazy River after all the vacationers soak in it.

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Linn Ullmann–“Time for Their Eyes to Adjust” (New Yorker, December 17, 2018)

Posted in Film & TV, Linn Ullmann, Marriage Trouble, Parenting, Short Story, Thilo Reinhard, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation on December 17, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE INNOCENCE MISSION-Tiny Desk Concert #807 (November 28, 2018).

I bought the third Innocence Mission album, glow, back in 1995.  The single “Bright as Yellow” was (and is) absolutely gorgeous.  It was a lovely, dream pop album.  But they took four years to make their next album and I guess I forgot all about them.

So what a delightful surprise to hear and see that they are still playing music together in their more or less original lineup.  After glow, their drummer left and they continued as a trio without drums.

The three songs they play are different in style, but not intent from “Bright As Yellow.”  “Bright” has a hazy/dreamy electric guitar sound.  These three song are gentle folk songs all on acoustic guitars.

The Innocence Mission, ever the most careful cultivators of quiet, encouraged us to come closer, to discover the “thing beautiful enough” in the moment it’s delivered.

They do not play “Bright as Yellow” (I wonder if they ever do anymore).  Instead they play two new songs and one old song.

The trio — now three decades into its existence — bookends this performance with two songs from 2018’s Sun on the Square. “Green Bus” and “Light of Winter” thread the long and winding needle of Karen Peris’ evocative words with her husband Don Peris’ decorative-but-nuanced guitar and Mike Bitts’ deft bass lines.

“Green Bus” sounds a lot like the recorded version, but warmer, somehow.  The end of the blurb says that Peris is a little under the weather.  It makes her voice seem even more fragile, which somehow makes the lyrics and the song even more intimate.

In some of my favorite lyrics of the year, Karen Peris tangles the tender and the tempestuous:

And what could I bring you,
now in the meantime?
Fruit from the sunlight,
quartz from the bay?
And where will I find this,
perfect and wondrous?
I look into shops,
I slip into rain.

Between those newer songs, The Innocence Mission plays “Tomorrow on the Runway,” the opening cut from 2003’s Befriended.  This song has a lovely guitar melody and Peris; delicate voice sounds wonderful.

Nursing a small cold, Peris’ voice slightly breaks when she sings, “Did you still leave the darkness without me? You’re always miles ahead” — but the humbling effect, however unintended, lingers in your being.

“Light of Winter” has a stunning chorus–the way the music weaves with her voice is gorgeous.  The verses are quiet and subtle but the way that chorus comes us–wow.

It was great to hear them again, and I think they may need to get added to a nightly bedtime rotation..

[READ: December 13, 2018] “Time for Their Eyes to Adjust”

This is a story of a woman’s relationship with her father.  A relationship that is strained and tested by many factors.

The narrator says she is 48, the same age her father was when she was born.  She is aware of her parents’ time together, but mostly through hearsay:

you can never know much about other people’s lives, least of all your parents’, especially if your parents have made a point of turning their lives into stories that they then go on to tell with God-given ability of not caring in the least about what’s true and what’s not.

Her recollection of her parents is that she was his child and her child, but never their child.  She spent a lot of time with her mother and then 1 month every year with him at Hammars, or Djaupadal (Sweden), as it was known in the old days. (more…)

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J. Robert Lennon–“Happyland” (Parts I-IV) (Harper’s, July-September 2006)

Posted in Dolls, dvsn, Fire, Funny (ha ha), Harper's, Humiliation, J. Robert Lennon, Jealousy, LGBTQ, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Revenge, Sex, Sexism, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence on December 16, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: dvsn-Tiny Desk Concert #806 (November 19, 2018).

I love when an artist appears on a Tiny Desk and the blurb is going crazy with excitement and yet I have never heard of them.  When I saw the name dvsn I assumed it was a techno band.  But I couldn’t have been more wrong:

With a four-piece band and three pristine backup vocalists for support, singer Daniel Daley flexed his falsetto pipes and a shiny gold grill, running through a sampler of fan-favorites about breaking up, making up and trying to move on. The short-and-sweet set is an example of the kind of audible acrobatics you don’t often hear at contemporary R&B shows anymore. … Though it’s easy to mistake dvsn as simply the stage moniker of Daley, the act is really a Toronto-based duo comprised of the singer and Grammy Award-winning producer Nineteen85, the (almost) secret weapon behind the boards.

The band has only released two albums, so they’re not especially long-lived, but clearly they have fan-favorites.  And they’ve been playing live for a number of years”

When dvsn visited NPR for this Tiny Desk concert, it reminded me of the first time I saw them two years ago in New York City. They decided to wash the desk in vibrant blue, purple and orange lighting, brought in by dvsn’s team to make the space feel like a concert hall. And while the audience at NPR was almost as densely packed as that NYC venue, it felt much like my live introduction to the group — grandiose in presentation, but at the same time, deliberately intimate in delivery.

They play three songs, “Too Deep” “Body Smile” and “Mood.”  Daniel Daley has an amazing falsetto–hitting crazy high notes almost randomly.  And thee lights are certainly a cool effect.  But these three songs are indistinguishable from countless cheesy-sounding R&B songs.

Of the three, “Body Smile” has the least amount of cheese–his voice sounds good and real and not smoove.

My favorite part of the Concert is actually after he says thank you and walks off because the band jams for an extra minute and they are great.  The guitarist plays a sick solo and then the band plays a gentle little jam to close out the show.

[READ: January 29, 2017] “Happyland”

This story behind this story is pretty fascinating.  Essentially he was inspired by the life of the American Girls creator Pleasant Rowland.  Although as he puts it in the introduction to the eventually-published book in 2013 (he wrote it in 2003), “I didn’t mean to write anything remotely controversial. A former doll and children’s book mogul started buying up property in a small town and the town got mad.  Wouldn’t this make a good novel, people kept asking me?”

He had friends who lived in the town that Pleasant was buying property in and told them not to send him any information about the story.  He didn’t want to write the story of Pleasant, he wanted to take that idea and write the story of Happy Masters a woman with a similar career but clearly a very different woman altogether.  He says, “To this day I know nothing of the real [doll mogul] that I didn’t learn over the phone, from lawyers.”

The original publisher, fearing imaginary unthreatened lawsuits, dropped the book.  As for the mogul herself she had no intention to sue. (more…)

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Dana Spiotta–“Jelly and Jack” (New Yorker, December 14, 2015)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Boygenius, Dana Spiotta, Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, New Yorker, Phoebe Bridgers, Phones, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on December 14, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: boygenius-Tiny Desk Concert #805 (November 16, 2018).

boygenius have been getting a ton of absolutely deserved press for combining the amazing talents of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus.

I wasn’t that upset when I read that the three weren’t touring near me (the tour was Lucy, Julie, Phoebe and then boygenius) because I had seen all three of them fairly recently.

In fact, I saw Phoebe in July, Lucy in April and Julien a few days after Lucy (as well as in April 2017).  But then I heard exactly how the tour was structured and that the boygenius part at the end was just stunning.  My only (sort of) consolation, was that they didn’t tour anywhere near me, so it’s not like it was my fault I didn’t go.

And I first heard about all three of them from Tiny Desk Concerts.

The group is new, but all of the members of boygenius — Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers — are Tiny Desk Concert alumae. In fact, Julien has been behind my desk twice before. So when the usual nerve-racking session was over and I shouted out, “So, is it any easier the second or third time?” I had to laugh when I got a resounding “No!” from all of them.

Boygenius only has six total tunes, all from their just-released, self-titled EP, and here they perform half of that catalog. What you get at the Tiny Desk is a frailer version of these more fleshed-out songs from a band that is likely quite temporary.

All three songs are delicate and lovely–somewhat belying at least Lucy and Phoebe’s ability to totally rock out

“Souvenir” opens with Julien singing the first verse while she gently plays mandolin.  Phoebe plays guitar and sings the second verse.  Lucy (no instrument) sings  a wonderful harmony with Phoebe in the second part of her verse and then sings the end solo.  All three sing the end.  It’s amazing how wonderful their voices sound together–they fit like a practiced team.

Bob asks if they have a joke.  Lucy attempts a cupcake joke and messes it up.  “I shouldn’t have gotten into that.  You baited me.”  Phoebe asks where the king keeps his armies (I’m not giving that away) and no one laughs (although I thought it was great).  Lucy says Jokes are not our forte.  To which Phoebe corrects her, It’s totally my forte, Lucy.

On the second song, “Me & My Dog” Phoebe (whose speaking voice is so much deeper than her singing voice its uncanny) sings the first verse and plays guitar.  Julien is on piano.  There’s gorgeous oohs from Lucy and Julien and then all three of them harmonize on the chorus.

For their closing tune at the Tiny Desk, “Ketchum, ID,” Julien, Phoebe and Lucy each take a verse.

Only Phoebe plays guitar on this one.  And they harmonize beautifully on the chorus.

Lucy’s verse ends the song with the line, “Let’s dissolve the band, move to Idaho.” And the chorus to the song, in stunning harmony, echoes the mileage of the lifestyle, how they live and how they met: “I am never anywhere / Anywhere I go / When I’m home I’m never there / Long enough to know.”

This trio is a special gift to us all in 2018.

There is a part of me that thinks it would be best if they simply made this lovely EP, did some shows and dissolved.  What a great stamp to make on music.

And yet I can’t help but think that we all need more from them.  We should just be grateful we got what we did.

Also, listen to their interview on All Songs Considered for more insight and a full retelling of the muffin joke.

[READ: December 14 2015] “Jelly and Jack”

This story is set in 1985, which is what allows its simple premise to be executed so well.

Jelly is a woman who calls men.  Not as a job or for sexual gratification, exactly.  But just to talk to  them.

The details are a little sketchy about who she calls, but it appears to be people she doesn’t know herself but knows about because of other men.  Some of the men are annoyed by her calls.  Some are angry, some even curse at her.  But others are willing to talk to her. (more…)

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Robert Walser–“The Great Talent” (Harper’s, January 2008)

Posted in Artists, Bernie and the Believers, Essence, Harper's, Robert Walser, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest on December 13, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 SOUNDTRACK: BERNIE AND THE BELIEVERS featuring ESSENCE-Tiny Desk Concert #804 (November 12, 2018).

I like to watch every Tiny Desk Concert at least twice before I write about them.  But there’s no way I can watch this one more than once.  It is just too emotionally draining.

I only know about Bernie because of the Tiny Desk Contest, when Bernie’s entry made me cry.  Although not for the song, for the story behind it. So I’m leaving all of Bob Boilen’s blurb here:

The story of Bernie and the Believers is the most powerful I’ve ever come across at the Tiny Desk. It’s about a beautiful act of compassion that ultimately led to this performance, and left me and my coworkers in tears.

I discovered the music of Bernie Dalton among the thousands of Tiny Desk Contest entries we received earlier this year. The band’s singer, Essence Goldman, had submitted the entry and shared Bernie’s story. You should hear her tell it in her own words at the Tiny Desk (and I choke up every time I hear it). In summary she said that a few years ago, Bernie — a father, a songwriter and a musician in his mid-forties, and an avid surfer with a day job as a pool cleaner — answered an ad she had posted offering voice lessons. Essence was a performer trying to manage her own career as a single mom, and Bernie was trying to improve his talents.

Bernie drove 90-minutes from Santa Cruz to San Francisco, eagerly showing up early to his voice lessons with Essence. But not long after they started working together, Bernie lost his voice. They didn’t think much of a it at first, but then things got worse. He had trouble swallowing and eating. Essence encouraged Bernie to see a doctor and after some tests Bernie Dalton was diagnosed with bulbar-onset ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. He began to lose the use of his hands and, along with it, the ability to play guitar.

With a prognosis of only one-to-three years left to live, Essence offered to raise money so that Bernie and his daughter could travel together. But what Bernie wanted more than anything was to make a record. So he asked Essence to not just be his voice teacher, but his voice. From there, they got to business. Essence pulled together a team of producers, engineers and musicians, while Bernie guided the creative direction through gestures and a dry-erase board. They wrote and recorded a new song every day. Their first single, “Unusual Boy,” was the one they included in their 2018 Tiny Desk Contest entry.

Now Bernie’s friends have gathered here in Washington, D.C. to perform his songs. All the while, Bernie watched and listened from his hospital bed on the West coast, communicating with us in a live video feed through his eye-gaze device. What you are about to witness is the ultimate act of love: Essence sacrificing her own musical ambitions to fulfill the dreams of Bernie Dalton. Through tragedy there was beauty.

So it’s hard to be critical of any of the songs, which are all solid and good.  I happen to not like “In Your Shoes” because it’s too country for my tastes.  Although it is impressive that she can sing in a country-style as well as in the other styles.

But the first song “Unusual Boy” is sweet and powerful.  The lyrics are wonderful and Essence’s voice is terrific for this one.

In between the second and third song, Essence relates the above story with more detail.  If you’re not crying by the end, you have a heart of stone.

“Simon’s Hero” is a song Bernie wrote to his daughter’s future children.  Good Lord.

[READ: January 20, 2018] “The Great Talent”

This is more of a harangue than a story.

The great talent knew he was a great talent and this knowledge allowed him to do nothing.  He was used to being given money and praise for his talent and soon he began to expect the money from everyone.  He was never grateful for any gifts he received.  Indeed he was rude to everyone.

A great talent like that is a monster. (more…)

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Joseph O’Neill–“Pardon Edward Snowden” (New Yorker, December 12, 2016)

Posted in Books about writers, Half Waif, Joseph O'Neill, New Yorker, Pinegrove, Poetry, Poets, Political Humor, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on December 12, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: HALF WAIF-Tiny Desk Concert #803 (November 9, 2018).

Nandi Rose Plunkett is a member of Pinegrove. She released albums as Half Waif, and when Pinegrove retreated for a time, she toured as Half Waif.  I wanted to see her but didn’t have the opportunity.

I was under the impression that her shows were very spare and I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy a full live set by her.  This five piece version (see more below) has a wonderful full sound though and these songs sound terrific.

The band [is] more often a trio, with Nandi singing her songs and playing keyboards, Zack Levine on drums and Adan Carlo bass synth and guitar.

But for this show she has a five piece band, which she has a great introduction for:

Midway through Half Waif’s Tiny Desk, singer Nandi Rose Plunkett stops to let us all know that this particular Half Waif show is extra special. “So today we’re actually ‘Full Waif,’ because I am joined by my dear friends,” she says. “These are all musicians who have played with the band Half Waif over the past five years, but we’ve never all played together until now! So thanks for the opportunity to get ‘Full Waif’ together.”

The other two guys are Zubin Hensler keys and Robin electronic drums.

It’s clear that she doesn’t need all five of them–the music isn’t all that complicated but it ensures a really full sound.  What’s most notable is the two drummers–each doing his own thing but combining into a wonderful rhythm session.

The session opens with “Lavender Burning.”  It sounds like she is playing a harmonium, but I don’t think she is.  The layers of synth are added to by Adan and Zubin.  It’s not until about half way into the song that the drums come in and it adds a lot of texture to an already wonderful song.

“Lavender Burning,” with its opening line, “Staring out into the shifting darkness / Tryin’ to give a name to the place where my heart is,” reinforces my love for their peaceful, almost backwoods calm.

The more I listen to the song the more powerful it becomes.  And Nandi’s voice is just lovely.

“Silt” opens with electronic drums and Nandi’s simple synth washes.  I love the thoughtful and clear lyrics

Nobody deserves me.  I get lonely. I get angry.
My love is like an island.  You can’t find it if you’re not trying
And if you want my love I will guide you. I will be your anchor.  If I only have a minute to myself. T hen i would let you in without poison.  I would eat my anger if you only gave me what I wanted.

Adan offers some nice backing vocals and Nandi does double duty on synth and piano.  There’s so many interesting sounds I’m not sure who is doing what (like that synth solo at the end).

The final song is “Salt Candy” which is the a more acoustic track–Nandi on piano only to start.  Adan is making the tiniest sounds on guitar and the drumming is spare and minimal.

When they closed with “Salt Candy,” the line “I wanted to be carried in my mother’s arms / I wanted to be buried in my mother’s arms,” in this setting and with the spare punctuation of electronic drums and textures, sitting alongside Nandi’s voice, was particularly chilling.

It’s a beautiful set and makes me like them a lot more.  I’ll definitely have to see them when they tour again.

[READ: January 7, 2017] “Pardon Edward Snowden”

Many people feel that stories about writers are not very interesting.  I disagree typically, but that’s probably because I aspire[d] to write something someday.

This story is about a poet and I really liked it a lot.  I enjoyed the political and the literary nature of the story.

Mark McCain received an email sent to many American poets inviting him to sign a “poetition” requesting that president Obama pardon Edward Snowden.

The request also took the form of a poem and the narrator talks about some of the rhymes: “pardon and rose garden.”  “nation and Eden” “Putin and boot in.”

Mark forwarded the email to his friend, the poet E.W. West.  They were enraged by the “poetition.” (more…)

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Kristen Roupenian–“Cat Person” (New Yorker, December 11, 2017)

Posted in #metoo, Film & TV, Kristen Roupenian, New Yorker, Pedro the Lion, Sex, Sexism, Tiny Desk Concert on December 11, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PEDRO THE LION-Tiny Desk Concert #802 (November 8, 2018).

At one time there were a lot of bands that had the word “the” in the middle of their name.

I have even tried to remember all of them, and it’s kind of hard:

Cage the Elephant
Portugal The Man
Young the Giant
Jukebox the Ghost

I pretty much made the decision to ignore all of them.  But over the years a few have either stuck out or remained for me.

Pedro the Lion was not one of them.  Probably because they went on hiatus while main Pedro, David Bazan recorded under other names:

“I’ve made music under many brand names. It was a dumb idea.  Don’t do that if you’re trying to make songs over your life and keep your creative personality intact and have people consume your music enough to allow you to do it you should use the same name.”  You can find that music filed under his previous “brands” or incarnations as Headphones, Lo Tom and his own name. But here Bazan returns to the one that first gave him voice: Pedro the Lion, a name he now says he intends to keep.

I don’t know much about Bazan.  He has a pleasing deep voice and his songs are pretty simple and catchy.

He opens with “When They Really Get to Know You They Will Run” a song that I rather like.  It’s got a great melody, with a cool slide during the guitar riff.  And I like that he’s playing lead bass.

No matter how dark or disastrous, there’s always been an undercurrent of grace to the music of David Bazan. Even in his most righteous anger, empathy seeps through. “When They Really Get to Know You They Will Run” opens the Tiny Desk set with sparse instrumentation — Erik Walters on guitar, Bazan on bass, Sean Lane on brushes and snare — not unlike performances of yesteryear, when slyly clever-yet-quiet riffs put Bazan’s sardonic wit front and center. Twenty years after being released on Pedro the Lion’s debut album, It’s Hard to Find a Friend, the cheeky song about hypocrisy (exposing the toxic male gaze through double standards of beauty) still rings painfully true.

The lyrics are pretty sharp, too:

Don’t like girls the way they are
So shave their legs and make them look like movie stars
Then we can pretend that it’s natural
Put on whatever makes you attractive
If it’s not you then do it for the sake of fashion
Your friends like a certain you
That’s who you’ve got to be

He says he wrote that song when he was 21 and he’s 42 now.

The second song “Yellow Bike” has been getting some airplay by me.  I find the recorded version way too simple and obvious.  But this version sounds great–it’s the roughness of his voice or the spareness of the instrumentation.  It’s a sweet song full of nostalgia.

When it’s over he says “we never played that in public before.”

Evidently Bazan created many songs under his own name.

So what about all of those songs released as “David Bazan” from the past decade? Those are now Pedro the Lion songs! That includes “Kept Secrets,” originally released on 2016’s Blanco. Its slow, doleful sway closed out the Tiny Desk with a hidden hope washed in snow, “white with ocean foam.”

This song is much slower and moodier.  It’s my least favorite of the three and I feel he sounds a but like the dude from Counting Crows, which is horrible.  But again I love the fact hat he’s playing bass chords and the harmonies are pretty terrific.

[READ: December 11, 2017] “Cat Person”

This is a terrific story about meeting someone and deciding if they are worthy of dating.  I particularly enjoyed that it was almost entirely from within the young woman’s head as she tried to figure out what to make of her new, older, suitor.

The story centers on a 20-year-old college student named Margot who gradually falls into flirtation with a man named Robert.

Margot worked at a movie theater.  When he bought red vines from her she said she didn’t think she’d actually sold a box before.  Margot used to flirt with customers when she was a barista–it got tips.  But you didn’t get tips at the concession stand.  Nevertheless, she was bored and Robert was kind of cute–not introduce-yourself-to at a party cute but cute enough.  Robert didn’t really respond to her.  But he came back the next week and when he got Red Vines again he said congratulations, you managed not to insult me this time.   He asked for her number and she gave it to him.

They spend a lot of time texting.  It was very jokey, but she seemed to be doing a lot of the work–he would respond, but if she didn’t say something funny, neither did he. (more…)

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Joy Williams–“Chaunt” (New Yorker, December 10, 2018)

Posted in Death, Joy Williams, Max Roach, New Yorker, Nicholas Payton Trio, Old Age, Parenting, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on December 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NICHOLAS PAYTON TRIO-Tiny Desk Concert #801 (November 2, 2018).

I feel like the Tiny Desk hasn’t had a good old-fashioned jazz trio on in a while.  With the Nicholas Payton Trio you get drums, upright bass and Payton on organ, trumpet and sampler.

All three compositions in this set are from Payton’s 2017 album, Afro-Caribbean Mixtape. “It is often said that New Orleans is the northernmost region of the Caribbean,” says Payton on his website. “Africa is the source of all rhythms. The Afro-Caribbean Mixtape is a study of how those rhythms were dispersed by way of the Middle Passage throughout Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico, then funneled through the mouthpiece of New Orleans to North America and the rest of the world.”

The first song is “Kimathi.”  I love the simplicity of the organ that he plays while the rhythmic precision of his band mates keeps the song going.  Drummer Jonathan Barber is going pretty nutty (albeit gently) on that minimal kit and bassist Ben Williams is playing nonstop.  And then around four minutes, Payton switches to trumpet, playing a melody and then echoing it on the keys.

Just to impress even more, while playing a melody on the keys, he holds a note on the trumpet for 25 seconds.

Payton dazzled the audience, simultaneously playing his trumpet and a Fender Rhodes. It’s his signature, resonant sound.  Payton’s genius virtuosity captivated both faithful fans and anyone in the NPR crowd just discovering his music for the first time.

The nine-minute song is an incredible start.  It’s followed by “Othello” a song that starts off so quietly that Barber plays the cymbals with his fingertips.  Even Payton’s trumpet feels subdued on it.

This song has vocals (from Payton) which I like less than a good instrumental.  While this seems like it would fit well in a smoky night club, it’s too slow for my tastes.

The final song “Jazz Is A Four-Letter Word,” comes from the title of a book Max Roach was working on before he passed away.  The song features samples of Roach speaking.  There’s a great bass line and gentle keys as Roach speaks.  I feel like Payton singing the title is a bit redundant since the samples are so effective (if not a little overused).

Racial constructs are notably relevant in the last tune, “Jazz Is A Four-Letter Word,” which was inspired by the autobiography of drummer and activist Max Roach. You can even hear Roach’s sampled voice, fused into the infectious groove, a narrative of black consciousness on display. Ideology aside, the music was on point and the audience couldn’t help but sing and clap as the trio took us out on a soulful rhythmic vamp.

The middle of the song is great as the tempo picks up and the bass is just walking all up and down the fret board as Payton jams along.  And although I initially dismissed Payton singing the title, the end sing-along is pretty cool.

[READ: December 10, 2018] “Chaunt”

“Chaunt,” the story tells us, is a place.  A place where there was an old chapel–more rubble than chapel now.  It was a place that Jane Click’s son Billy and his friend Jerome rode their bikes to all the time.

The boys say that the place is full of animals and not made-up animals, either.  Not an elephant or a lion or a polar bear, not exactly.  “They were waiting, but they weren’t waiting for us.”  The boys watched the animals and then the animals became motionless “but still animals.  All the animals you’d ever hope to see.”

It’s a weird story.  But it’s also a horrific story because we find out pretty early on that these two boys have been killed.  They were riding their bikes home from Chaunt and were both struck by a car.  The driver was not found at fault (which I think is impossible) because he couldn’t see them in the dusk. (more…)

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