Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Tiny Desk Concert’ Category

John Barton–“School of Xerex Fino” (The Walrus, July/August 2020)

Posted in Alicia Keys, Canadian Content, John Barton, Memoirs, Poetry, Poets, Sex, The Walrus, Tiny Desk Concert on June 24, 2020| Leave a Comment »

julyaugust200SOUNDTRACK: ALICIA KEYS-Tiny Desk Concert #978 (June 15, 2020).

aliciaMy family was playing an online game where you have to give clues to name a person or thing.  We did a pop culture round and Alicia Keys came up I think twice.  And I asked my daughter is she knew who that was.  She said no and asked me if I did and I said no.  I couldn’t think of a song she sang and wondered if she was even still singing.

Literally the next morning, NPR posted this Tiny Desk Concert.  I still don’t know what her music sounds like on record, bu this Tiny Desk version was really nice.  I came away really impressed by her and her band.  And I loved how much everyone smiled through the set.

Alicia Keys radiates compassion and kindness. This spirit is the key to Keys’s songwriting, which is rooted in introspection and mindfulness.As she approached her piano, a bit surprised at the amount of people in the room, she smiled and remarked over her shoulder, “Gee, the Tiny Desk is tiny!”

Before the first song, Alicia plays the piano and chats to everyone.  Saying how everyone wants to be shown love.  I thought it was just a nice opening, but it was a lead in to the song “Show Me Love.”  Everyone in the audience sang along to the chorus very nicely.

 She kicked off the set with an uncanny ode to combat the darkness of this moment in American history: “Show Me Love,” a single she released in 2019. No one could have predicted then how much her lyrics and musical healing would be crucial during this emotionally fraught time of unprecedented political and racial unrest, heightened by three months of quarantine due to a global pandemic.

The first song has an acoustic guitar from Curt Chambers (played in a gentle finger-picked style with occasional slapped notes).  Omar Edwards sprinkles keys all over the song while (married) backing vocalists RAII and Whitney hitting some high notes and soft deeper notes (they are both very impressive).

Keys’ voice is really nice.  She doesn’t do anything show off-y or divaish.  She just sings beautifully (occasionally showing off all of her vocal chops).

After the song she steps away from the piano and says she’s her own personal tech–bang set change.

As she introduced her new song “Gramercy Park” she asked for some “talking vibes” so Chambers played some quiet backing music as she talked about how much we contort and conform and adjust ourselves for other people–with the best of intentions.  We are so concerned about making other people happy that we lose ourselves.

The stand-out moment during her Tiny Desk was the premiere of “Gramercy Park”, a song from her upcoming self-titled album, ALICIA, which is set to be released this fall. It’s one of those timeless songs that will transcend radio formats and genres, with lyrics that address how utter selflessness and worrying about making everyone happy but yourself can throw your own center askew. The song’s spiritual refrain is sure to be a sing-along moment for the rest of Keys’s career.

It starts with a slow beat from Mike Reid with some lovely acoustic guitars. And the lyrics say

I’ve been trying to be everything I think you want me to be
I’ve been doing all the things I think you want to see
I’ve been trying to fulfill you and your every need
Now you’re falling for a person who’s not even me.

She said she’s speaking out a lot more.  We should speak out in the moment instead of letting it pass, ignoring it, forgetting it, but you never really forget it and then six years later…

Introducing her latest single “Underdog” she asked what we would learn if we actually sat and talked to people.  It’s a great song, inspiring to anyone who has felt put upon.  This is such a good verse:

She’s riding in a taxi back to the kitchen
Talking to the driver ’bout his wife and his children
On the run from a country where they put you in prison
For being a woman and speaking your mind
She looked in his eyes in the mirror and he smiled
One conversation, a single moment
The things that change us if we notice
When we look up, sometimes

There’s cool oooohs from the backing vocalists and a nice upright bass from Ant Parrish.

After crowdsourcing suggestions, she and her band delivered a riveting rendition of Keys’s breakout 2001 single, “Fallin’.”

I didn’t know this song and I wonder how different it sounds from the original.  She sets up the beginning with some brash singing and the backing singers do some cool loud vocals.

Keys also impressed me with her great piano playing.

I’m embarrassed that Ii didn’t know who she was, because she’s pretty great.

[READ: June 23, 2020] “School of Xerex Fino”

This month’s issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue and features two pieces of fiction, one memoir and three poems.

The second piece is a poem.  I don’t know what Xerez Fino is and can’t find anything about it.

There are five stanzas. The first sets up that the club where they met was Toxic.

The third sets up the scene in detail: (more…)

Read Full Post »

John Updike–“Free” (New Yorker, January 8, 2001)

Posted in Cancer as plot device, Coronavirus, Haim, John Updike, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Quarantine, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert on June 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »

ja1SOUNDTRACK: HAIM-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #34 (June 17, 2020).

haimWhen Haim first came on the scene they were marketed as a kind of hard rocking sister act.  So when I heard them I was really disappointed because they are anything but hard rock.  In fact this Tiny Desk (Home) Concert shows just how nicely their music works as  kind of poppy folk songs.

I haven’t really liked most of their songs, but I do like first and third in this set (I was unfamiliar with the middle song).

“The Steps” is like a classic rock song that’s been around for ever.  “The sunny, take-no-prisoners assertion of independence of “The Steps” recalls the soft rock jams of their earlier albums.”  The very cool sounding lead guitar riff that opens the song is definitely missed in this version, but the song itself is really solid and their harmonies are lovely.  The bass is mixed too loudly in this song, which is a bit of a shame since the rest sounds so good.

Strangely, it’s only Danielle who speaks and introduces only herself.  So you need the blurb to tell you that on her left is her sister Este Haim (bass, keyboard, drum pad, vocals) and on her right is her sister Alana Haim: (guitar, vocals, bongos).

The second song is “the muted techno glimmer of ‘I Know Alone.'”  Este switches to keys, Danielle switches to a rhythm machine and keys and whole Alana keeps the acoustic guitar she is also playing keys.  I think she keeps the guitar for one dramatic harmonic moment..  This song is kind of bland–not much really happens in it.

In comes Henry Solomon (the screen splits into four) to add saxophone for the final song “Summer Girl,”

a song that wavers like a heat mirage reflected off New York’s summer sidewalks, thanks to Henry Solomon’s whisper-toned sax.

I had no idea this song was HAIM  I recognized that saxophone melody immediately and have hear it many times on the radio.   Once again the bass is too loud, which is a bummer since this song is so chill. This song also feels like it has been around forever–there’s a real timeless quality to it.

HAIM recorded its Tiny Desk set before the death of George Floyd, and released “Summer Girl” last year. The world has changed a lot in that time. With its opening line — “LA on my mind, I can’t breathe” — “Summer Girl” becomes another piece of music that takes on a parallel meaning in the evolving social and political landscape of 2020.

I didn’t enjoy Haim’s early stuff, but I have come around on this album.

[READ: June 19, 2020] “Free”

This was a short story about who love ages.

Henry was married to Irene, but he was having an affair with Lila, who was married to Pete.

Irene was stuffy, very proper.  Lila, by contrast, once stripped off all her clothes and skinny dipped into a cold lake in front of him–“her bottom a sudden white heart split down the middle, in his vision.”  Lila lived in the now and gave herself to him completely.  But Henry “was no good at adultery…because he could not give himself, entirely, to the moment.” (more…)

Read Full Post »

Emma Steinkellner–The Okay Witch (2019)

Posted in Cats, Children's Books, Coronavirus, Emma Steinkellner, Graphic Novel, Insecure, PJ, Quarantine, Sexism, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Usher, Witches, Wiz Khalifa on June 20, 2020| Leave a Comment »

okSOUNDTRACK: PJ-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #33 (June 12, 2020).

pjI understand that coming up with a stage name has to be tough, but there’s too many artists who try to go by one name when t hat name isn’t unique enough.  I mean, the rapper Dave?  C’mon.  PJ is another one.  That is such a common nickname there’s really no way you can claim it.

However PJ (whose real name is Paris Jones) has apparently made a name for herself.  Usher, Wiz Khalifa and more.  These songs come from her debut EP–I’m fascinated by the people who write hits and then eventually decide to sing.  Why did they give their songs away instead of singing them?  Is it a good way to establish your cred and make some money?  Probably.

Anyhow, I expected these songs to be much more pop-friendly and hook-filled.  Rather, they are pretty songs and PJ’s voice is really nice as well, but they aren’t earworms.

Backed by Drin Elliot on the keys, the Los Angeles-based North Carolina native breezes through two tracks off of her new EP, Waiting on Paris, from quarantine digs complete with mannequins, floral arrangements and radiant artwork.

I like the sound that Elliott gets from the simple setup (but I guess you can program synths to do a ton of stuff at the press of a button).

PJ is now the third singer in a row to have a song on the soundtrack for HBO’s Insecure.  I am now really surprised that I haven’t heard of it, even in ads.

For the final song and with the biggest grin on her face she “switches vibes” with the upbeat and anthemic “Element,” from this season of HBO’s Insecure. Here, her energy is nearly impossible to harness as she exclaims “quarantined but in my element!”

Strangely, I don’t find this song all that anthemic.  It’s kind of catchy, but then I haven’t found any of the Insecure songs to be all that super catchy.  Maybe it’s an understated soundtrack.

[READ: June 19, 2020] The Okay Witch

This graphic novel was wonderful.

Set in Founder’s Bluff, Massachusetts, this story is about witches (duh).  But there’s a fun twist with a mother-daughter/generational issue that definitely goes beyond witchcraft.

Middle schooler Moth (no explanation given for the name) lives with her mom, Calendula.  They own a second hand shop that was once owned by a nice old Jewish man named Joe Laslo.  (The Jewish part is relevant only because of what happens later–it’s funny).

As the story opens we learn that Founder’s Bluff has a long, beloved history of witch persecution.  Judge Nathaniel Kramer made the witches leave the town.  In 1692, women were accused of bewitching Kramer’s son Peter, and they all “disappeared,” taking Peter with them.  Kramers have been in charge ever since (the Mayor is a descendant). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Steve Martin–“The Grand Old Opera” (New Yorker, January 15, 2001)

Posted in Coronavirus, Funny (ha ha), Justus West, KIRBY, Lucky Daye, New Yorker, Quarantine, Steve Martin, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Willie Nelson on June 19, 2020| Leave a Comment »

martinSOUNDTRACK: KIRBY-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #32 (June 11, 2020).

kirbyWith recording equipment as easy to get as it is it seems like every person on earth might have a record out someday.  How else to explain how these Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts are just chock full of people I’ve never heard of before.

KIRBY has a really nice voice.  These renditions are wonderfully low-key.  It’s just Justus West playing a simple but effective guitar and KIRBY singing in a restrained style.  This is at least the fourth time I’ve seen Justus West in a Tony Desk Concert (Ty Dolla $, Leikeli47, Logan Richardson) and I think he’s pretty fantastic.  I’d like to see him features more.  I’m pleased that she doesn’t do any histrionics, she just sings prettily.

.KIRBY’s panache here, bolstered by a yellow bodysuit and blonde afro, is infectious and — just like the sunny backdrop of her manager’s LA home — her vocal runs radiate a soft power.

She plays three songs from her debut album Sis.

The first track is “Kool Aid” and with a dose of millennial spunk she sings “New hair, new braids / Nina Simone with a touch of ‘Yonce,” 

For the final song, the guy who has probably been on the most Tiny Desks in the shortest amount of time, Lucky Daye comes out to song with them.  It’s a little upsetting that they don’t seem to be fully social distancing, but they don’t touch, so that’s good.

“Velvet” is another song on the show Insecure which I’d not heard of until yesterday’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert. Wins my heart for her improv first line:

“If I was a president I would tax it [No trump].”

Lucky Daye adds a high vocal R&B line that is almost the same range as her, although she does eclipse his high notes at the end.

[READ: June 19, 2020] “The Grand Old Opera”

This is one of those rare Shouts and Murmurs pieces that actually has a punchline–it sets itself up and pays itself off.  Most of them tend to be a joke that plays off of iterations of itself, so it was nice to have a conclusion.

The starting point of this piece is from a hilarious complaint from John Ashcroft (remember when he was the worst we had to worry about?).

Ashcroft complains that the opera gets funding from the NEA but people like Willie Nelson and Garth Brooks don’t. He then has the preposterous comment:

Those of us who drive our pickups to those concerts don’t get a subsidy; but the people who drive their Mercedes to the opera get a subsidy.

This piece centers around a discussion between the chief troubleshooter and the company director of the Metropolitan Opera House .

The troubleshooter is very concerned because there are people coming to the Met tonight on a Ford Taurus.  Worse yet, they are planning to arrive early to get a good parking sport. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Ursula K. Le Guin–“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (1973)

Posted in Coronavirus, Horror, Insecure, Quarantine, Sci-fi, Science, Short Story, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Ursula K. Le Guin on June 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BABY ROSE-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #31 (June).

I had not heard of Baby Rose until her recent Tiny Desk Concert.  Now here she is at home and her voice is once again remarkable.  With all of the music stripped back, she sounds even more like Billie Holiday.

The depths of sorrow and passion the D.C. native digs into with such conviction has come to be reliably awe-inspiring. It’s the reason her Tiny Desk concert earlier this year stopped us in our tracks. And it’s the reason we’ve invited her back to bring the heat once again, albeit from a safe and secure distance.

Even though Baby Rose’s pianist Timothy Maxey is in the same room with her, he is sitting pretty far away.

The set opens with “Pressure,” a song that accentuates her voice.  Up next is a new song, “Marmot,” which “she hadn’t performed live until this Tiny Desk (home) concert.”

The final song is one that has been getting some airplay.

Earnest intention is the reason Baby Rose’s music has found a place on HBO’s hit series Insecure. In this bedroom mini-show, Rose performs “Show You” (which was used to underscore this season’s most dramatic romantic plot twist).

I don’t have HBO; I’ve never even heard of the show,so I can’t comment on that.  It sounds an awful lot like the other two songs.  But somehow I’m fascinated that she can sing like that while seated.

[READ: June 18, 2020] “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”

In a post about Bubblegum recently, Jeff mentioned this story which I had not heard of.  Indeed, I have read very little Ursula Le Guin–not for any reason, I just haven’t.

He described is as short but sad, and I wanted to see how it tied to Bubblegum (it does, but I can’t say how without giving anything away).  It’s also wonderfully written.

My first observation is I can’t believe it was written in 1973 because it fees very contemporary.  The details are vague enough that it could be anywher at any time, which is pretty genius.  Although that vagueness actually made it a little bit hard for me to get into the story at first.

But about half way through the vagueness fades and the details come in and are excruciating. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Douglas Coupland–Kitten Clone: Inside Alcatel-Lucent (2014)

Posted in Alain de Botton, Canadian Content, China, Cigarettes, Coronavirus, De La Soul, Douglas Coupland, France, Geoff Dyer, Holmdel, NJ, Liaquat Ahamed, NPR/PRI/PBS, Olivia Arthur, Paris, France, Quarantine, Racism, Sa-Roc, Set in New Jersey!, Sexism, Star Trek, Technology, The Future, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert on June 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »

alcaterlSOUNDTRACK: SA-ROC-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #30 (June 4, 2020).

sarocI have never heard of Sa-Roc, but I was blown away by her lyrics and delivery.  I really enjoyed that her delivery was intense and serious, even angry, but her delivery was so thoughtful.

If you want protest music for the uprising of the American consciousness, then look no further. Sa-Roc (born Assata Perkins) is an emcee from southeast Washington, D.C.

Sa-Roc bears her heart and soul here, weaving together influential threads from her upbringing; Pan-Africanism, the hardship of her father’s experience as a sharecropper in Virginia and her own childhood in Congress Heights, D.C., an area ravaged by violence and the crack epidemic in the 1980s.

In this Tiny Desk (home) concert, she debuted two exclusives, “Deliverance” is about reassessing where you are in making a commitment to change things. I love the beats and the lyrics.  She references Posdnous and De la Soul and then has this moment where she says this is the world’s tiniest violin and a violin sample plays.

After the song, she lights some sage to clear the energy.  She wants her space to experience joy and to be a stress-free peaceful environments.

“Hand of God” is her latest single about staying true to yourself.  It has a sung chorus and Sa-Roc has a pretty singing voice along with her flow.  In the second verse she raps with a sped up version of herself which is pretty neat.

“r(E)volution,” is from her upcoming album, The Sharecropper’s Daughter, which is produced by her partner in life and DJ, Sol Messiah.  It starts with a pretty guitar and a great bass line

On “r(E)volution” she spits bars: “Embedded in the home of the brave, the darkest of interiors. / Saw street scholars and soldiers defect cuz they post-traumatic stressed from the American experience.”

“Forever” is for little girls who ever felt like they were held to impossible societal standards; and if the world told them they weren’t good enough, weren’t valuable enough, weren’t worthy enough, weren’t dope enough to take up space or use their voice; they didn’t come from the right area or the right class or education; didn’t have the right skin tone or complexion; anything that made them feel less than.  This is about how dope you really are with all of your perfect imperfections.

I love that after a quiet clapping moment the song soars with guitars and bass.

[READ: May 8, 2020] Kitten Clone

In the Douglas Coupland collection Shopping in Jail, there was an essay called “All Governments Seem to Be Winging it Except for China.”  The essay said that it came from this book: Kitten Clone.

I wasn’t sure how interested I really was in reading about the history of Alcatel-Lucent, but I should have known that Coupland would do his thing and find an interesting and unique way to write about something that should be dull.

The only weird thing is that Coupland implies that he is alone on this excursion, but the photographs are not his (which is surprising since he loves art) the pictures are by Olivia Arthur.

This book is part of a series called Writers in Residence created by Alain de Botton, with the slogan: “There are many places in the modern world that we do not understand because we cannot get inside them.”  Coupland’s book is the third in the series.  The other two are Geoff Dyer: Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush and Liaquat Ahamed: Money and Tough Love: On Tour with the IMF.

This book looks into the past, present and future of Alcatel-Lucent and the cover of the book sets the stage: (more…)

Read Full Post »

David Means–“Two Nurses, Smoking” (New Yorker, June 1, 2020)

Posted in Cigarettes, Coronavirus, David Means, Florence Proce, Hospitals, Lara Downes, Margaret Bonds, Nurses, Quarantine, Romance, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sex, Short Story, Shoshone, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert on May 31, 2020| Leave a Comment »

indexSOUNDTRACK: LARA DOWNES-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #29 (May 30, 2020).

laraI don’t know Lara Downes, although from the picture you can see that she is a pianist, obviously.  But she also works in communities with young people–something she has been unable to do since the coronavirus took over.

This Tiny Home Desk is visually more interesting than most of the others, because she has a mobile cameraman, her son Simon, who walks around and zooms in on her fingers and elsewhere.

She plays three songs

all from her recent album Some of These Days… They are strong statements that resonate in new ways. From Margaret Bonds, one of the first celebrated African-American women composers, there’s “Troubled Water,” a poignant riff on the spiritual “Wade in the Water” that Downes says takes a “journey from classical virtuosity to gospel, jazz, blues and back again.”

It has a very fluid feel but is also quite dark.

The next piece surprised me not because of the song but because of the arranger.  Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, yes the author, created this arrangement of “Deep River.”  I’m surprised that there is nothing else said about him.  I had no idea he was musical as well.

She says there are many interpretations of the river in this song.  For some, it is crossing over into the afterlife.  In the time of slavery, it meant crossing to freedom.  For Downes it represents “crossing over” the coronavirus crisis, to something better.

She is looking to raise money for FeedingAmerica.  If you go to her site and donate you can get a signed copy of her new album.

The final song is Florence Price’s “Some of These Days,” which she sees as a vision of better times ahead.  It is a beautiful slow piece.

The set ends with a jump edit to her snuggling her beloved pooch, Kona.

[READ: May 31, 2020] “Two Nurses, Smoking”

This story is broken up into titled paragraphs.  The title often works as the first part of the first sentence.  At first I didn’t understand this technique, but by the end it made a lot of sense.

The story is indeed about two nurses smoking.

Gracie grew up living in a motel that people paid for week by week.  A high school counselor encouraged her to go to nursing school.  Marlon grew up on the Shoshone reservation then his mother moved East and married a man who drank as much as she did.  He had been in the war and has a scar from an IED. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Fiona McFarlane–“Demolition” (New Yorker, May 25, 2020)

Posted in Coronavirus, D Smoke, Fiona McFarlane, Murder, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Quarantine, Sex, Short Story, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence on May 30, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: D SMOKE-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #28 (May 29, 2020).

The lineup of musicians for the Tiny Desk Home Concerts has been a fascinating mix of known and unknown folks.

I have never heard of D Smoke.  Apparently it’s not surprising that I don’t know who D Smoke is because

last year, the rapper and pianist, born Daniel Farris, rose to national acclaim when he won Netflix’s MC battle show Rhythm + Flow.

Winning allowed him to quit teaching and produce music full-time.  He plays four songs.

D Smoke’s songs here — taken from his latest album Black Habits, out earlier this year — acknowledge the disparities impacting the black experience that are simultaneously personal and universal. The opening selection, “No Commas,” is a heart-wrenching lament on injustice and inequality. The gentle touch of D’s fingers moving across the keys complement the song’s poignant lyrics, which he raps in English and Spanish.

I am really quite amazed at what rap sounds like without a beat, with no percussion of any kind.  These songs are performed with just the piano.  Stark and powerful.

I enjoyed the lyrics to “No Commas”

I told ’em I’m the one for the job, no commas
And I’m serious, period, no commas
Wanna enjoy my family and my friends with no drama

The song segues into “Closer to God” which has a more jazzy/lounge vibe.  He sings the chorus and has a lovely voice.

This is his first time playing and rapping “Seasons Pass.”  Although he is rapping, his is very musical about it, kind of singing more than straight ahead rapping.  But when he gets rapping, his flow is fast and impressive.

He also performed “Black Habits II,” the affecting finale to Black Habits, for the first time in a live setting.

The album is about his upbringing growing up, for the first nine years, with a single mother and then his pops coming home [from being incarcerated] and being a good role model.

He cautions us that it’s his first time playing it live so, “If I stumble a bit we gonna pick it back up.”  He does stumble a bit but it sounds great.

[READ: May 25, 2020] “Demolition”

It’s always interesting to read a story set in a different country.  I guess one always imagines a story is set somewhere familiar unless you are told otherwise.  It wasn’t until about half way through the story before I realized it was not set in the States.  And I think it was very close to the end that I realized it was set in Australia.

But the setting doesn’t matter so much because the story is about the house across the street which is being torn down today.

Eva lives across the street and is sad that the Biga house is being torn down.  Her husband, Gerald, is happy to see the eyesore go.  As they looked through the blinds, they watched people come and take souvenirs from the place.

Then came the media. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Simon Rich–“Everyday Parenting Tips” (New Yorker, May 25, 2020)

Posted in Coronavirus, Francesco Turrisi, Funny (ha ha), Monsters, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Quarantine, Rhiannon Giddens, Simon Rich, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert on May 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHIANNON GIDDENS AND FRANCESCO TURRISI-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #27 (May 28, 2020).

Rhiannon Giddens has a really amazing voice.  It is powerful and full and easily commands your attention.  She’s a practitioner of traditional music and loves to share the history and the culture.  She also writes her own songs.  However, introducing the second song Rhiannon Giddens explains “We’re not doing my original songs, ’cause with these kinds of emotions, the old songs say it best.”

They start with “Black as Crow” a lovely traditional song starting with Giddens’ mournful violin and then Turris’ plaintive banjo.  It’s amazing how rich and deep her violin sounds  Which makes me think it is a viola.

Rhiannon talks a bunch about how the pandemic has effected them.

They canceled their tour of Japan and returned home to Ireland; Rhiannon lives in Limerick while Francesco lives a few hours away in Dublin where they recorded this Tiny Desk (home) concert.

She says it’s hard for them as musicians because to do anything they have to be videographers and engineers and everything.  There’s a reason why people do that as the thing that they do and we appreciate them even more.

For the “Spiritual” mentioned above, Rhiannon plays the banjo and Francesco plays a bodhrán.  It starts with Rhiannon singing a capella, then she starts playing with great banjo picking (even some groovy slide work).

Food and art are the basis of what we are as human beings. And those are hit hard.  She started a website ArtLivesOn.com.

They end the set with two songs, “Carolina Gals” segues into “Last Chance.”  Rhiannon plays a violin (fiddle) while Francesco gets an amazing variety of sounds from the tiny hand drum he plays.  It’s like a tambourine with a skin on and there’s wonderful diversity of sounds.  The lyrics of “Carolina Gals” are familiar but different: “Carolina girl’s won’t you come out tonight.”  But my favorite part of the set comes at the end when Rhiannon just takes off on the fiddle playing the super fast instrumental “Last Chance.”

[READ: May 25, 2020] “Everyday Parenting Tips”

I love Simon Rich, he makes me laugh out loud pretty regularly.  Although this piece fell flat to me.  The premise is okay but there’s not enough to do with it, so it kind of runs out of steam pretty quickly.

This comic essay is all about how to help your children who are afraid of monsters.

It starts off easily enough with the calming assurance that it is normal for children to be afraid of monster.  It shows a sign of a healthy imagination.  By five they should be convinced that monsters aren’t real.

The problem however is that some monsters are real.  Ever since the Great Monster Uprising, when the monsters arrived from the Dark Place, monsters are an unavoidable part of out lives. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Terry Moore–Five Years #10 (2020)

Posted in Abstract Studio, Bombs, Coronavirus, Death, End of the World, Environmentalism, Graphic Novel, Military, Neil Gaiman, NPR/PRI/PBS, Russia, Skiing, Strangers in Paradise, Terry Moore, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Wire on May 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WIRE-Tiny Desk Concert #976 (May 27, 2020).

I feel that it is something of a failure on my part that I never really got into Wire.

Although I don’t know why, I will never forget that their 1988 album is called A Bell is a Cup … Until It is Struck (I was working at a radio station when it came out and “Kidney Bingos” was a minor hit).  But I never really followed through with them.

Bob Boilen, on the other hand, is a huge fan.

For me, it was beyond surreal to watch Wire performing at my desk, in broad daylight, in 2020. I spent many an evening over the past 40 years, listening to their original, artful bursts of noise and imagery, seeing them in dark clubs in the ’80s and beyond. From the time I first heard them in 1977, few bands have encapsulated my musical aesthetics like Wire.

There have been some hiatuses for Wire since their debut in 1977 (from 1981-1985 and 1993-1999) but each time they reunited, it was the original four person lineup.

It was only ten years ago that guitarist Bruce Gilbert officially left the band.  But at the Tiny Desk,

there they were, with three original bandmates: Colin Newman, singing his enigmatic poetry, and those driving rhythms of Graham Lewis on bass and Robert Grey (aka Robert Gotobed) on drums. Matthew Simms was the “new” bandmate, having now played with the band for the past 10 years.

Thankfully, Wire plays four songs (they still only play for 15 minutes and they are Bob’s favorite band).

What’s most remarkable is how the sound of songs such as “Cactused” from their 17th album, Mind Hive, sit so well next to “French Film Blurred” from their 1978 album — and one of my favorite records ever made — Chairs Missing.

“Cactused” has a cool chugging rhythm and bass.  Newman sings in his deadpan, almost spoken delivery.  Newman plays the little guitar leads while.  It stops on a dime.  This band is tight.

“Be Like Them” is also new.  I love this song.  It’s got a slinky guitar riff which is  accompanied by three loud thumps (drums and bass) to accent the verses.  Simms plays a really cool noise-filled “solo” (really just some noisy chords) in the middle of the song.  Newman is once again kind of deadpan reciting his lyrics.

“French Film Blurred” is from 1978. It’s got an unusual riff and Newman sings a bit more than speaks, although he is still restrained.  They make great use of the two guitars with Simms adding all kinds of sounds while Newman plays the main melody.

Everyone tunes and then Newman says they’re going to play “an obscurity from the 80s that we revived into the current set.”  “The Offer” is from 1989’s ITABA.  It’s slower and rather quiet.  There’s even some gently picked guitar parts from Simms. But as it nears the end the song gets louder and louder with Sims adding a distorted and a flanging guitar.   The songs seems like it’s over, but while everything is ringing out, Newman pays a few ending chords.

Try and imagine your favorite artist today, playing a concert in someone’s office in 2062 and still having an emotional impact with extraordinary new songs. As I said, it’s beyond surreal and genuinely thrilling.

Wire played their Washington DC show on March 9, so that’s probably when this concert occurred (and therefore MUST have been the final Tiny Desk Concert before the quarantine].  Wire were playing Philly on March 10.  I had considered going but I had a lot of other shows to see in March so I didn’t want to overload.

This set was so good, I wish I had gone to see them. Maybe they’ll be back in 2021.

[READ: May 20, 2020] Five Years #10

This is the final issue of Five Years (I think).

It was supposed to be released during the Coronavirus epidemic.  But Abstract Studios offered a special cover (so I don’t know what the proper cover looks like yet).

NEWS: We’re going to release a tiny print run of Five Years #10 for subscribers, & anyone who wants one really. This is for those reading the single issues who don’t want to wait months to read the final chapter. If not a subscriber, you can pre-order a copy in our store now. Just CLICK HERE.

The rumor is Diamond Comics will reopen this summer and we will be able to stagger release issue 9 and 10 to the general public then. 9 is sitting in their warehouse, waiting like a rodeo bull. For the small number hooked on the single issues, we feel you deserve 10 now, because without your monthly support the series couldn’t have happened at all.

So I bought the limited edition cover because I wanted to finish the series.  I didn’t think he could possibly end the series with this issue as it seemed like there was too much up in the air. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »