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Archive for the ‘Tiny Desk Concert’ Category

Edwidge Danticat–”Without Inspection” (New Yorker, May 14, 2018)

Posted in Calgary Stampeders, Canadian Music, Cuba, Culture Shock, Death, Edwidge Danticat, Haiti, Live at Massey Hall, New Yorker, Short Story, The Rural Alberta Advantage, Tiny Desk Concert on May 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE-Live at Massey Hall (July 8, 2014).

The video opens with Nils Edenloff saying that this concert is an amazing posterity thing.  That it’s ungraspable for them right now, but they’ll look back after the fact and say, “Oh wow, I looked great then.”

“As a scrappy indie band it feels wild to be allowed to set their gear on stage for a spell.”

I have hears some songs by the band, but, wow, live they are a powerhouse.

The way “Luciana” opens is incredible: Drummer Paul Banwatt is a maniac sounding like two or three drummers as he crashes through some snare drum pattern variants and cymbals galore.

Nils Edenloff’s guitar has a great loud sound–very electric and large.  It sounds like the strings are loose wires smacking against the guitar and the fretboard (bot not detuned or anything).  And he sings with abandon.

Amy Cole’s keys are not as powerful as the rest but they provide a foundation for the rest of the band to play on

Muscle Relaxants has Cole singing backing vocals which fleshes out their sound even more.  They make a large racket for a trio that’s almost all acoustic.  Between songs, Nils comments:

“Wow you guys are quiet, no phones out, I guess.”

Don’t Haunt This Place is slower.  The vocal melody is familiar if not common, but the drums are just so thumping, it sounds great.  And the backing vocals are perfect.

Introducing “Tornado 87” he says

For those not from Alberta, you don’t have to sing Alberta songs if you’re from here, it’s just something we stumbled on.  Oddly enough we played part of this song last weekend at the Stampeders home opener and there happened to also be a tornado while we played this song.  Lets hope for the best tonight.

The song continues with the intensity of the other songs but it has a wonderful quiet middle section which erupts into an explosion at the end.

Two Lovers is solo, just Nils and his guitar.  It’s a nice break from the intensity.

“Terrified” is a new song that opens with just a guitar but then …boom…  great harmony vocals and a powerful chorus.

The show ends with “Stamp” which has a great clap-along section and wonderful ooohs to end the song.

This was the final video in Season One of the Live at Massey Hall series.   There are four seasons in total thus far.

[READ: May 9, 2018] ”Without Inspection”

This is the story of a man falling to his death: “It took Arnold six and a half seconds to fall five-hundred feet” is how it opens.

The story zooms in on Arnold’s mind for those six and a half seconds and the few seconds that remain before he actually dies.

He sees his son, Paris and Paris’ mother, Darlene.  And he flashes back to how they met, what has happened since they met and what he hopes will happen after he is gone.

The fall was unplanned and occurred when his left foot slipped off a scaffold and he fell out of the loosened (or broken) safety harness.

The story also details the fall–faster by the second. (more…)

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Jesse Eisenberg-“My N.B.A. Knowledge Comes in Handy” (New Yorker, May 14, 2018)

Posted in Basketball, Darko Miličić, Funny (ha ha), Jeff Buckley, Jesse Eisenberg, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jordan, Naia Izumi, New Yorker, Parenting, Scottie Pippen, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest on May 14, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NAIA IZUMI-Tiny Desk Concert #742 (May 14, 2018).

Naia Izumi won the Tiny Desk Contest and here he is with his full Tiny Desk Concert (note to those who submit–you’ll need to have more than one song handy if you win).

He and his band play three songs.

Naia Izumi won us over with his mind-boggling and unique style of guitar playing — a combination of tapping on the fingerboards and soul-filled whammy bar-note bending. And his multi-octave singing range blended so eloquently with his guitar stylings.

Naia is often a one-man band playing on the streets with a drum machine. But for his Tiny Desk Concert he brought bassist Adam Matijasevic and drummer Kynwyn Sterling. He’d met Kynwyn after submitting one of his songs to a math rock Facebook group. And that’s the thing: Naia’s music draws from so many spheres of sound. There’s that punctual, rhythmic, mathematical pulse to what he does, but there’s also a fluid, almost African Kalimba sound in there as well. They’re two sounds I wouldn’t often think of as coexisting.

“Soft Spoken” (the song that won the contest) starts off with him beat boxing and then playing that astonishing finger-tapping riff.  He seems very relaxed and comfortable playing the song in this setting.  And the addition of the bass and guitar really flesh out the sound nicely.  I particularly like the few extra bass fills.  And of course a live drummer is always superior to the machine (even if she looks a little disinterested).   The guitar solo is really pretty, too.

It’s a song, as I hear it, that speaks to the power inherent in the gentle and quieter voices that are often drowned out by the outspoken and boisterous ones. Its title was originally “Soft Spoken Woman” and, as we later learned, Naia had identified as a woman for nearly seven years. More recently, as he said in an interview with Washingtonian Magazine, “I’m not into that anymore because I just want to relax with biology and be comfortable with what I have.”

The other two songs are new to even Contest watchers.  Can he do it two more times? Indeed he can.

“As It Comes” features some very cool guitar seconds (lots of chords with vibrato).  It’s pretty neat to watch his hands fly up and down the neck of his guitar.  He does some more finger-tapping in the middle of the song and what I love about it is that he’s not showing off or trying to impress (although it is impressive).  It’s all in service of the song (especially if he was playing by himself).

But it’s Izumi’s vocals that really deliver on this song.  He sings the bridge with a wonderfully delicate whisper that soars into his high falsetto.

There seems to be a synth on this track although I can’t place it.

The final song is “Soul Gaze” and it sounds huge.  There’s something about the guitar effects that he uses on the chords that make this song explode  with a Jimi Hendrix kind of texture.  And his vocal delivery soars into Jeff Buckley territory.  I love that those two things drew my attention more than the finger-tapping (which also sounds great).

It’s a tremendous song and Izumi seems a more than worthy winner.

[READ: May 8, 2018] “You Never Really Know”

This piece is fairly slightly Eisenberg is always able to pull the funny out of seemingly slight premises.

As the title suggests, Jesse knows a lot about the N.B.A.  And that knowledge does come in handy in unexpected places.

Like with his prospective father-in-law.  The man is unimpressed with Jesse–no stable employment, no car or house as well as being emotionally unavailable,

Jesse doesn’t disagree with the man, in fact he confirms it and notes that this must be how the Detroit Pistons’ manager felt after drafting the disappointing Darko Miličić instead of Carmelo Anthony in 2003.

This catches the father’s interest: “You know the tertiary details of the Darko Miličić saga?”

In a second example, Jesse was speeding –going ninety-one miles an hour in a sixty-five zone.  The difference is 26 mile per hour.

Jesse acknowledges his mistake and points out that 26 is also Kyle Korver’s jersey.

The officer is stunned that this guy knows the jersey number of the rotation player for the Cleveland Cavaliers.  But he explains he’s no savant, he reads about basketball all the time.

He stopped reading novels because it makes him feel competitive with other writers, whereas when he reads about basketball he knows there is no competition.

The office is sorry that he is plagues by this self-doubt and borderline hubris.

Finally, he is talking to the N.B.A Commissioner who wants to offer him a job “as a superstar player.”  Because what matters in a clutch situation?  Not quick reflexes but “an ability to name the assistant coaching staff of the Oklahoma City Thunder.”

Fun fact:

Michael Jordan an Scottie Pippen quizzed each other using flash cards.

Eisenberg always brings a smile to my face.

For ease of searching, I include: Darko Milicic.

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George Saunders–“Active Metaphors” (Harper’s, August 2008) and “Death By Icicle” (Harper’s, July 2011)

Posted in Abigail Washburn, Anachronisms, Bela Fleck, Bomb, Culture Shock, Essays, Excerpt, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Funny (ha ha), George Saunders, Harper's, Humiliation, Jane Austen, Language, Patrick Dacey, Steve Martin, The Guardian, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence on May 13, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK BELA FLECK & ABIGAIL WASHBURN-Tiny Desk Concert #741 (May 11, 2018).

I know and like Bela Fleck.  I know and like Abigail Washburn.  I had no idea they were married.

A very pregnant Abigail Washburn points to Bela Fleck at the Tiny Desk and says “and just so you know, this is his fault.” I won’t spoil the video by telling you his response.

Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn are two American musical treasures. This husband-and-wife banjo duo write original tunes steeped in the roots of folk music. Their playing is sweetly paced with melodies interweaving through their intricate, percussive picking all while Abigail soars above it all with her discerning, yearning voice.

I also had no idea how political they are.

Their first tune, “Over the Divide,” was written at the height of the Syrian Refugee Crisis. They’d read a story about a Jewish, yodeling, Austrian sheep herder who helped Syrians out of Hungary, through the backroads that likely only sheep herders know.

Lyrical content aside, the music is just stunning.  The banjo is oft-mocked for its twang, but these two play such beautiful intertwining lines, it is just magical.   The opening melody is just jaw-droppingly lovely.

They each switch banjos to rather different-looking ones–deeper more resonating sounds

The second tune, “Bloomin’ Rose,” is a response to Standing Rock and the Dakota pipeline that is seen as a threat to water and ancient burial grounds. The intensity and thoughtfulness in Bela Fleck’s and Abigail Washburn’s music is why it will shine for a good long while, the way great folk tunes stay relevant over the ages.

But Abigail isn’t just banjo and vocals,

For the third tune, Abigail waddled over to a clogging board. And before she began her rhythmic patter, told us all that “my doctor said that what I’m about to do is ok! I have compression belts and tights on that you can’t see.” [Bela: so do I].  They then launched into “Take Me To Harlan,” another one of their songs from their 2017 album Echo In The Valley.

She says that they met at a square dance in Nashville, and she loves dancing and movement.  Bela plays and Abigail sings and taps for this jazzy number.  The middle of the song features a call and response with Bela on banjo and Abigail tapping [“Eight month?  No problem.”].

For the final song, “My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains,” Abigail says it’s usually done in a perky bluegrass country style but they listened to the lyrics and decided it was not perky at all.  So they turned it into a different thing.  It’s a somber song with Bela on a relatively slow banjo (with a slide that he sneaks on near the end) and Abigail singing mournfully (she can really belt out a tune).

Although as Steve Martin pointed out, with a banjo almost everything is upbeat.

The parties at their house must be a hoot.

[READ: January 21, 2018] “Active Metaphors” and “Death By Icicle”

“Active Metaphors” is one of Saunders’ funniest pieces that I’ve read.  And whats strange about that is that it was an essay published in the Guardian newspaper.

There are two headings: “Realistic Fiction” and “Experimental Fiction”

“Realistic Fiction” begins with the narrator in a biker bar.  He overheard two bikers, Duke and StudAss discussing these two types of fiction. –they’d purchased their “hogs” with royalties from their co-written book Feminine Desire in Jane Austen.  There was some verbal sparring during which they threw Saunders out a window “while asking questions about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s fallen American utopia.”

The narrator explained his theory of realism to them–everything happens the way it actually would and then suggests that maybe a central metaphor would help define things.  There’s an impotent farmer and every time he walks past the field, the corn droops.  An active metaphor like this helps the reader sense the deeper meaning of the story.

As they ride off with him on their hog, the bikers use some great professorial language–the end is hilarious. (more…)

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Colin Fleming–“Find the Edges” (Harper’s, April 2018)

Posted in Arundhati Roy, Colin Fleming, Darlingside, Death, Harper's, Jealousy, Parenting, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on May 11, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DARLINGSIDE-Tiny Desk Concert #739 (May 4, 2018).

I genuinely can’t believe that Darlingside hasn’t done a Tiny Desk Concert before as they are a perfect band for it–four guys playing primarily acoustic instruments, singing gorgeous harmonies around one microphone–perfect..

But here they are for the first time sounding somehow bigger than they do live (must be the small space and the surprisingly loud bass).

If you’re Darlingside and you have three albums out (but two that fans really love) and you can only play three songs, what do you choose? You must choose something from Birds Say, of course, but what?

They chose “The God of Love” one of several gorgeous songs on the album and a showcase for Don Mitchell’s 12 string guitar and Auyon Mukharji’s violin.

I did not know that

“The God of Loss” was inspired by the Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things, and by the main character’s attempts to preserve humanity in the face of competing forces.

As is standard practice, Harris Paseltiner give the opening introduction.  He speaks of being up since five and drinking decaf and eating a delicious quiche.  Don quips, “don’t worry you only have to hear about Harris’ morning in minute detail, not he rest of us.”

And then it’s time to move on to the new album.  The current single “The Best of the Best of Times” allows them to show off the new electronic gizmo that adds sounds to the album as well as Auyon’s mandolin.  It’s also really catchy, and Don throws in all kinds of unexpected dissonance with that little electronic thingy.

Auyon introduces the band by saying how they are similar to Bob Boilen (I did a little research on the internet).

Don: Tiny Desk Concert is named after a band that Bob was part of (Tiny Desk Unit) with a friend named Michael Barron.  Don has a friend named Michael with whom he plays music (Michael Cohen, different Michael, same idea).

Don: has a friend name Michael who whom he played music.  (Michael Cohen, different Michael, same Idea)

Harris: Bob grew up around Italian people and uses his hands to speak.  So does Harris.

Dave: thinks about the sound of words and how good it feels to say things and Bob’s “stage name” Bob Boilen is very pleasant to say so they probably gave that in common.

Auyon: Bob sometimes wears bolo ties I also sometimes wear bolo ties.

The end the set with Harris on cello and Auyon on violin playing the gorgeous, melancholy “Extra life” which

starts off the album with these lines:

“It’s over now
The flag is sunk
The world has flattened out
Under the under grow
I’ve always found
A level further down
As I begin to lose hold of
The fiery flowerbeds above
Mushroom clouds reset the sky
Extralife”

After the string-filled opening Harris jumps back to guitar and Auyon is back on mandolin while Dave Senft is playing the little electronic gadget this time

The opening is nearly a capella so that when the band kicks in, the full instrumentation on the second verse, it feels huge.

Through these end-of-time lyrics comes deep appreciation for what we have and what’s worth holding on to. And through it all Darlingside’s humor shines, with in-between chatter about quiche and common bonds. Don’t miss this band’s music. This is the perfect introduction to Darlingside, right here.

Every time I’ve heard them they’ve been great.  The only downside to this show is that it’s so short.

[READ: March 30, 2018] “Find the Edges”

This was a very sad, rather short story about death and a family disintegrating.

The central metaphor of putting a puzzle together was really effective without being obvious.

His wife loved jigsaw puzzles.  She always said to find the edges and work your way in. But the kitchen table, which usually held her puzzles was now filled with papers, bills for wreaths and the like.  Also on the table was a pie from the Rendons next store. (more…)

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tUnE-yArDs (Union Transfer, Philadelphia PA, May 10, 2018)

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Tiny Desk Concert, tUnE-yArDs, Union Transfer, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on May 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: May 10, 2018] tUnE-yArDs

When I first saw tUnE-yArDs on a Tiny Desk I was really impressed by Merrill Garbus’ set up.  I loved that she looped things so much–she may have been my first real exposure to that much looping.

I also loved that she played a kind of modified ukulele.  And I really liked her voice which was so unexpected for someone who looked like she does.  When I first heard them I assumed she was African American.

I loved the album w h o k i l l, but hadn’t really heard that much from them since.  There’s a new song that WXPN has been playing “Look at Your Hands” which I liked, but I didn’t hear anything else from the album.

So based on the Tiny Desk, tUnE-yArDs had been very high on my list of bands to see.  But that was many years earlier.  I still had high expectations and I found myself not exactly disappointed but like something of an outsider at the show.  Because while I didn’t know that much of her new music, the rest of the crowd knew everything and danced accordingly.

I had hoped to get tickets to see her club show at Boot & Saddle.  I don’t know how different that small show was but this show was simultaneously large and small.

I had heard that there were previously saxophones, background vocalists and percussionists on stage with her.  For this show there was only Hamir Atwal on drums and her musical partner Nate Brenner.

The stage set up was sparse: a big white backdrop and Garbus on a raised platform.  The drums on her right, the bass on her left.

Garbus still loops with abandon.  Indeed, Shara Nova made a comment about Garbus’ feet.  The key to Garbus looping (and there was plenty), is that she does a lot of the work with her feet.  However, there was a monitor in front of her feet so you couldn’t watch what she was doing up there.  That kinda stunk.

But she had a ton of energy.  She played a small drum pad a modified ukulele and those loop pedals.  She danced around on her platform and occasionally, briefly came down to the audience and danced a bit before heading back to her station.

Garbus and crew recreated three songs from the new album.  And everyone around me sang along.

I thought that Nate Brenner’s bass was too loud in the mix, but when he played a high riff it sounded great.

I loved hearing “Look At Your Hands” live where the dynamic was seven more dramatic than on record.

She played only one song from Nicki Nack, the catchy and pointed (like nearly every other songs) “Water Fountain.”

And then it was on to the songs from Who Kill that I was really excited to hear: “Es-So ” and “Powa.”

I had heard a lot about her new album which explores the nature of her relationship to African culture.  I’d always wondered about her voice and her intonations, just how African it sounds.  So in a recent interview in GQ she says:

When I was in college I studied Kiswahili, translating plays from Swahili into English and taking lots of African Studies classes and African American literature classes. I went to Kenya and was just so disgusted by the role of white people in colonial history—and, most importantly, present day postcolonial dynamics—that I just shut down. For years I felt like, “There’s no way I can make the music that I want to, which is all influenced by black music.” Bird-Brains, the first tUnE-yArDs album, was almost called White Guilt. So from the beginning of tUnE-yArDs, I have been grappling really awkwardly with that. The song “Jamaican,” a lot of it was me talking to myself: What’s going on here? Do you have a right [to make this]? Why is this music coming out of me? What will people think?

She grapples with serious issues of white guilt and colonization  (like the song “Colonizer”).  These songs are powerful and thoughtful.  And yet for the most part they are incredibly dancey.

In that interview she said:

I want people to dance. Really. That seems so simplistic an answer, but I really value the ceremony of bringing people together into a specific space and not thinking so much. [laughs] Ironically. I know there’s a lot to think about with this music, but when essentials of music take over… seeing people be literally on the same wavelength? It’s super powerful. I felt like making people dance was the right thing.

The audience enjoyed the show tremendously and there was ample dancing.  and I enjoyed hearing her make the music, but  I never quite felt on the same wavelength as everyone else.  Her appropriations of African culture (even how she danced) made me unconformable.  I knew what she was trying to address, but the music was more in my head than in my body.,

Knowing that she has bona-fides in the area makes things better, but can’t change the way I felt about the show.

Having said that, the encore of “Bizness” was totally killer.

This is a setlist from a few shows earlier, but I think it’s pretty spot on.

  1. Honesty*
  2. Look at Your Hands*
  3. ABC 123*
  4. Water Fountain
  5. Es-So
  6. Powa
  7. Colonizer*
  8. Coast to Coast*
  9. Gangsta
  10. Heart Attack*
  11. Encore
  12. Hammer*
  13. Bizness

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Patrick Chamoiseau–“The Mastiff” (Harper’s, April 2018)

Posted in Dogs, GZA, Harper's, Huh?, Linda Coverdale, Patrick Chamoiseau, The Soul Rebels, Tiny Desk Concert, Wu-Tang Clan on May 10, 2018| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: GZA & The Soul Rebels-Tiny Desk Concert #738 (May 2, 2018). 

GZA is the latest rapper to come to the Tiny Desk with a live band.  He had a six piece brass band Manuel Perkins (Sousaphone), Julian Gosin (Trumpet), Marcus Hubbard (Trumpet), Erion Williams (Saxophone), Corey Peyton (Trombone), Paul Robertson (Trombone) and two percussionists Lumar LeBlanc and Derrick Moss.

It turns out that on a recent tour The Soul Rebels were actually the headlining band and GZA was a special guest:

This set was recorded when The Soul Rebels were in Washington, D.C. for a performance at the 9:30 Club that featured GZA and Talib Kweli. It was one of just a handful of live concerts GZA has done with the group.

I was surprised to hear than GZA (or frankly anyone from Wu-Tang Clan was “notoriously introverted.”  Also that “Most rap fans would name RZA as the head of the Wu-Tang Clan. But Wu purists know that GZA, or The Genius, is the crew’s unspoken elder statesman.”

Once they stepped behind the desk they got right down to business, opening with the sparkling “Living In The World Today,” from GZA’s 1995 solo album Liquid Swords. These 23-year old lyrics and metaphors felt timeless.

After the song he smiles, “That was cool.”

GZA continued his onslaught of poetic precision with another beauty from Liquid Swords, “Duel of the Iron Mic.” “I ain’t particular,” he spat, starting to break into a sweat behind the desk. “I bang like vehicular/Homicides on July 4th in Bed-Stuy.” At one point, GZA even channeled his cousin, the late great Ol’ Dirty Bastard, who provided the hook on the original version of the track.

By the third and final song at the Tiny Desk, driven by unbridled passion and his command of the room, GZA was soaked in sweat as they broke into the title track of Liquid Swords. The Soul Rebels perfectly recreated the track’s seamless horn hits while adding on a bit of their own flare. The cherry on top arrived when GZA used his final minutes to tell the story of how the hook originally came together. In RZA’s basement, smoking and drinking with fellow Wu lyricist Masta Killa, RZA was sold on a routine he, GZA and ODB used to perform as teens.

I don’t know GZA’s solo stuff.  I don’t really know his flow.  He sounds a bit old and a little rusty, but his delivery is strong (even when he “forgets his own verse” in “Liquid Swords”).   I love the way The Soul Rebels play the eight notes over and over in an almost menacing holding position.

And the tale he tells about the final song is pretty great.

 

[READ: April 10, 2018] “The Mastiff”

This is one of those stories (translated from the French by Linda Coverdale) that to me just seems endless despite its brevity.

The Master has never seen this thing before.

He releases the howling mastiff.

He follows the dog.

For the rest of the story. (more…)

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Tom Angleberger [Sam Riddleburger]–The Rat with the Human Face: The Qwikpick Papers #2 (2015)

Posted in All Songs Considered, ÌFÉ, Children's Books, Easter, Funny (ha ha), Hotels, Humiliation, Jen Wang, Mennonites, Ms. Pac-Man, Oddities, Rats, Religion, Short Books, Tiny Desk Concert, Tom Angleberger, Yuck! on May 2, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 SOUNDTRACK: ÌFÉ-Tiny Desk Concert #736 (April 29, 2018).

ÌFÉ is from Puerto Rico.  Creator Otura Mun has a fascinating history as to how he wound up creating this band:

Otura Mun started out in the world as Mark Underwood, a Goshen, Ind., native whose parents were Mennonites and who managed to snag a coveted spot on the University of North Texas’ drumline. But that was before a flight mixup landed the percussionist, composer, DJ and producer with a free trip to Puerto Rico. Two years later, he moved permanently to the island, became a Yoruban high priest and began creating electronic music that channeled the African diaspora.

Woah.

So ÌFÉ (pronounced ee-faye) combines traditional Afro-Cuban drumming and chanting with a kind of Jamaican dancehall sound.  Midway through the set, Mun explains that he drilled holes into the traditional acoustic drums and has attached electronics to them, essentially making them triggers, but with the traditional acoustic sound as an overtone.  It’s pretty amazing.

The group’s debut album, IIII+IIII, (pronounced “Edgy-Og-Beh”) is a fresh electronic take on tradition that’s winning over even the most devout practitioners of the western African-based spiritual ceremonies that form the base of their music. That’s hard to do with ritual music.

Although interestingly, for the first song “House of Love (Ogbe Yekun),” they play acoustically.

For their turn behind the Tiny Desk, Otura Mun and his ensemble unplug their drums for their first tune, an acoustic version of their “House of Love (Ogbe Yekun)”.

This acoustic sound is quite compelling in itself.  Yaimir Cabám plays a beautiful acoustic guitar (pretty, simple chords) and sings, I believe wordlessly.  Meanwhile, the rest of the band plays various percussion: simple electronic percussion and shaker and various hand drums.  Anthony Sierra on congas keeps the rhythm.

After a verse, Otura Mun joins in on vocals (with deep backing vocals from Beho Torrens).  It’s a quiet, soothing song with occasional punctuation from the drums.  When the melody finally changes after 4 minutes, it sounds like a massive shift even if it’s just a few notes.

“Prayer for Oduduwa (Para Meceditas)” opens with bells and shakers and some interesting electronic splashes before the massive amounts of electronics take over the song.  I believe Rafael Maya joins them and was not their for song one.

The sound of the second song here is what startled me when I heard the band’s debut CD last year: the parts normally performed on Afro-Cuban bata drums and chekeres are electronically treated for a traditional prayer for the deity Oduduwa.

They sing in a traditional chanting style including an awesome low chant (from Torrens) that sounds otherworldly.

By the last tune, “Bangah (Pico Y Palo),” the electronics have created a sonic playground that plays perfectly against the battery of Afro-Cuban rhythms.   “Bangah,” focuses on a reflection of the Orisha Ogún, the owner of war in the religion, whose main tool is the machete.

Mun says he wanted to play urban music you could improvise and to use percussion as the basis–Cuban rumba combined with Jamaican dancehall.  He demonstrates some sounds and then a deep rumbling bass: “we got your nasty subs that you know from that the stuff that’s nasty.”

The song is a shout out to those struggling against the vestiges of colonialism still prevalent in Puerto Rico.

They begin the song with a “breathe in” [inhale] let it out Ahhh!

I love the way the various voices are processed.  Torrens sound deeper and Cabám’s voice sounds alien and like it is three voices at once.  The various lines are interspersed with interesting vocals sounds: grunts and screams that punctuate the verses.

It’s a very cool set.

[READ: March 19, 2018] The Rat with the Human Face

In 2014, Angelberger’s first book The Qwikpick Adventure Society was reissued as Poop Fountain.  He then wrote two more books in this trilogy.

This is the second book (written in 2015) and it opens with this

This is the second of three stacks of papers this guy found in a storage room at the old Qwikpick gas station in Crickenburg.  The guy, who asked me not to use his name, called me because one of my old newspaper articles was in the first stack.  (You know I was a reporter before I wrote the Origami Yoda books, right?)

Then he reminds the readers that this book is set in 2000–kids didn’t have iPhones or smartphones.  They didn’t have phones at all and cameras took forever to charge the flash and they drained the batteries fast.

So the entire Qwikpick Adventure Society: Lyle, Marilla and Dave is back, but this story begins with bad tidings–the Qwikpick Adventure Society was disbanded after this adventure.  (more…)

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Jen Wang–The Prince and the Dressmaker (2018)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Bedouine, Children's Books, Crossdressing, Drinking, Fashion, First Second :01, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jen Wang, Laura Marling, Romance, Tiny Desk Concert, Transgender, YA Books on May 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BEDOUINE-Tiny Desk Concert #737 (April 30, 2018).

Bedouine has a lovely clear voice.  She’s a genuine folk throwback treasure, without being retro.  Her songs are remarkably simple and yet they are rich and almost enchanting.  There is something about the way she sings that makes you want to listen, to lean in and hear what she has to say.

Her guitar playing is also very pretty.  Again, a reasonably simple finger-picking style.  but it is simultaneously precise and warm.

I saw her live recently and she held an entire club rapt despite being an opening act for two much louder bands.  So who is Bedouine?

Azniv Korkejian is Bedouine, a singer and acoustic guitarist who echoes sounds from the 1960’s North American folk songwriters, but with vocal inflections that feel closer to Leonard Cohen than to Joni Mitchell or Joan Baez.  This is as spare as music can be – songs stripped to their essence and just gorgeous.

Azniv Korkejian was born in Aleppo Syria. Her parents were Armenian and she spent her childhood in Saudi Arabia. But a green card lottery win found her family moving to Boston and Houston. Eventually she made her way to Los Angeles with important time spent in Austin, Texas and Savannah, Ga. The name she chose, Bedouine, reflects the traveler, the wanderer in her.

She plays three songs, just her and her guitar.  The songs don’t diverge that much from each other.  She even jokes that the second song is a different song than the first one, she promises.

“One of These Days” is a pretty song that seems so optimistic because you can feel the smile in her voice as she sings.  But as with much of what she plays, there is a kind of melancholy to it.

“Solitary Daughter” opens with the same chord (and picking) but soon shifts textures. I love her delivery on this song in which she lets her voice drop a register and adds a kind of Laura Marling spoken word style to part of it.

The middle third is just stunning

I don’t need the walls
to bury my grave
I don’t need your company
to feel saved
I don’t need the sunlight
My curtains don’t draw
I don’t need objects
to keep or to pawn
I don’t want your pity
Concern or your scorn
I’m calm by my lonesome
I feel right at home
And when the wind blows
I get to dancing
My fun is the rhythm of air
When it’s prancing

“Nice and Quiet” is an intimate love song, but one tinged with sadness.  It has such a charming and sweet melody, which really sums up her music pretty well.

[READ: March 5, 2018] The Prince and the Dressmaker

Jen Wang is back with an outstanding book.  I absolutely love her drawing style.  The look of her dressmaker, Frances, is just adorable.  I love her clothes, I especially love her face, which is cartoony but not caricature-y.  The prince’s nose is huge but not overtly comical and adds a distinctive element to the story.

But what makes this book stand out even more than the art is the story.

The Prince is holding a ball.  When the scene pans back we see horse-drawn carriages.  In other words, the time is sort of nebulously olde.  The women are dressed fancy, with petticoats.  There is much stress around town because all the young women wish to go to the ball.

A woman storms into a couture shop with a mud-covered dress.  Her daughter decided to play in the dress and it is ruined.  Can then makes something for her in time?  Frances is available and the owner gives her the job. (more…)

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Robert Coover–“Treatments” (New Yorker, April 30, 2018)

Posted in Anachronisms, Fairy Tales, Feminism, Film & TV, Funny (strange), Huh?, Language, New Yorker, Postmoderism, Robert Coover, Short Story, Superorganism, Tiny Desk Concert on April 30, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SUPERORGANISM-Tiny Desk Concert #735 (April 25, 2018).

Superorganism came out of nowhere with the weird song “Something for Your M.I.N.D.” a weird hybrid of pretty much every genre.  Is was catchy and irritating at the same time.

I didn’t really think too much of them until I started hearing a but more about them.  And that their show at a small club in Philly sold out really quickly.  Then I learned more about the band and saw a live video performance and they seemed really interesting.

Are they a novelty band?  Sure.  But they are having a lot of fun, and that goes a long way with me.  Especially if the songs are catchy.

Why does it take 7 people to make simple, catchy pop songs?  I have no idea.  But they all seem to be important in their own way.

The multinational band of theatrically fun and talented musicians in Superorganism mix melody and mischievous with almost Seussian folly. In addition to the 20-plus inflatable whales they provided, the band requested via email that we provide “7 x Crunchy apples, 7 x cans of Coca Cola (or similar, as long as they are 330mls/12oz cans it doesn’t matter).” They added, “PLEASE NOTE THIS IS NOT A RIDER BUT PART OF THE PERFORMANCE.”

When the seven members of the band arrived and huddled behind my desk, they blew into straws, making percussive noises, used toy cars and radios for sound effects and added lots of handclaps. And in the midst of it all was Orono Noguchi, a small-framed, self-described “average 17-year old Japanese girl living in Maine.” (That’s from an email she wrote me last year). The band set up a couple of belt pack guitar amps for their Moog and electric guitar, along with a big Anvil road case to beat on for percussion – and then they sang about prawns.

The first song “The Prawn Song” really shows everything you need to know about the band (and whether they are for you or not).  Noguchi sits, sing/speaking deadpan lyrics.  The other six splash in buckets of water, blow bubbles in glasses, honk horns and clap a lot.  There’s also a lot of backing vocals.  And a guitar.  And the word?

“Oh, have you ever seen the prawn cause a world war?
Have you ever kissed a prawn; got a cold sore?
Have you ever seen a prawn kick off?
Have you ever seen a prawn in a pair of handcuffs, oh

You people make the same mistakes
Over and over, it’s really kinda dumb, oh
Slow learning is kinda your thing

You do you, I’ll do me / Chillin’ at the bottom of the sea and I say…

[Chorus]  I’m happy just being a prawn.

“Night Time” has a bit more “music” and fewer  effects (relatively), but still a lot of handclaps.  It’s catchy and quieter than their usual frenetic songs (being about nigh time).  But there’s still some fun quirk in it (especially the end).

Then they play “Something for Your M.I.N.D.” (and not their new single “Everybody Wants to Be Famous,” which surprised me).  There’s a Beck’s “Loser” aspect to the lyrics of this song.  Once again for a seven piece band, their music is surprisingly minimal.

And they do actually use the apples in this song.

There is much fun to be had with all the songs and I can’t decide if Noguchi’s deadpan makes things even more fun or if I just want to assure her that it’s all okay.

I bought tickets to an upcoming show of theirs because who even knows if they’ll be around in a year, so enjoy them while I can.

[READ: April 25, 2018] “Treatments”

I often feel like Robert Coover’s writing consists of him getting an idea, writing it down as it comes to him, editing it for spelling and then releasing it.

This is actually three short pieces here and each one is a “treatment” for a terrible/absurdist take on a clichéd movie.

“Dark Spirit” is a surrealist twist on the Beauty and the Beast Tale.  I love when Coover puts in a nugget that makes you go, woah!, like “The industry is obsessed with this hackneyed tale, once inflicted upon young virgins to prepare them for marriage to feeble old buzzards with money.”  Woah, that blew my mind.  It seems so obviously true, and yet I never heard it put that way before. (more…)

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George O’Connor–Olympians 10 [Hermes: Tales of the Trickster] (2018)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Adventure, Animals, Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Benny Hill, Cerberus, Children's Books, Chimera, Cyclops, Death, Dogs, Egyptology, End of the World, Fears, Feminism, First Second :01, George O'Connor, Graphic Novel, Hades, Hera, Heracles, Hermes, Lernaean Hydra, Logan Richardson, Minotaur, Myths, Nemean Lion, Pan, Peacocks, Poseidon, Religion, Series, Sphinx, Supernatural, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Zeus on April 28, 2018| Leave a Comment »

olymmpSOUNDTRACK: LOGAN RICHARDSON-Tiny Desk Concert #734 (April 23, 2018).

Logan Richardson is a jazz saxophonist.

I’ve been down on saxophones lately, but I do really like the sound he gets.  I’m a bit more impressed by the rest of his band, though.

Since I don’t know Richardson, I’ll let the blurb speak for me, with some of my comments.

Richardson ‘s latest project, Blues People,  … was derived from the early slave calls that inspired the earliest American jazz and blues musical traditions. Here at the Tiny Desk, the saxophonist revisits that history with four remarkable songs from the album, all performed with a hope that our country’s future will be less painful than its past.

“80’s Child” is a reflection on the decade Richardson was born. Its colorful melody complements the band’s energetic fusion groove. Continually pushing forward with momentum and anticipation, its 8/8 time signature moves seamlessly into 10/8 to create an intensity that is both focused and free.

I love the opening guitar work (by Igor Osypov) which sounds very un-jazzy to me–you could hear an alt-rock sound being built out of that.  While Igor is doing a simple but pretty guitar solo rhythm guitarist Justus West keeps the rhythm work with some interesting whammy bar bending.   About three minutes in, drummer Ryan Lee gets some great little improv moments.  I really enjoy the song even if I find myself tuning out the sax and listening to the guitar.

Richardson notes, “The desk is tiny but it’s mighty.  I have a tiny saxophone that I forgot to bring.”

The next groove, “The Settlement,” maintains a similar tone and features DeAndre Manning slapping on his funky bass.

This song feels more jazzy to me–prominent sax with jazz guitar chords.  But I do love the jazz/prog rock section with the slap bass and the guitars following suit.  I definitely tune out the sax to listen to the great riffage from the strings

While the band is ringing out the last notes of the song, Richardson introduces the next

The song gently segues into the only vocal piece, “Black Brown & Yellow,” a lovely reminder that racial diversity is something to celebrate.

They do a short chant of “Black, brown and yellow is beautiful.”  It’s a pretty, almost sensuous song sung first by West and then joined by everyone else.

I love that I am now quoting someone quoting some else about this last song:

“Anthem (To Human Justice)” ends with brilliance best described by my colleague Nate Chinen, “By design, too, Richardson’s alto saxophone often functions more like a lead vocalist than as a virtuoso solo instrument. He’s a good conduit for soaring, plaintive melody…. And however the band surges or thrashes around him, there’s a feeling of urgent communion in this music.”

The backing music is once again excellent and interesting, with cool time changes a nifty guitar solo (while the second guitar is doing some other cool stuff too) and some great bass work.  I really like the way the whole band jams it out at the end–the band sounds great and Logan’s sax is right there with them soloing the whole time.

I feel like this is jazz for people who don’t like jazz.

[READ: March 17, 2018] Olympians 10

I’m still not sure how many books O’Connor has planned for this series, although in his introduction he talks about saving his favorite books for the end, so I assume there are at least two more (although 12 seems reasonable).

Here’s the summary of the man himself:

George O’Connor is a massive geek and Greek scholar.  He has done lots of research for these books, including going to Greece and visiting sites and antiquities as well as comparing all manner of ancient stories to compile the most interesting pieces. He explains that since these stories were orally passed down, they were modified over the years.  He doesn’t change the myths, he merely picks the story lines that are most interesting to him.  And then he adds a lot of humorous modern touches (and dialogue) which keep it from being at all stuffy.

O Connor’s drawing style is also inspired by superhero comics, so his stories are presented in a way that seems much more like a super hero than a classical hero, which is also kind of fun.

Each book ends with an author’s note which is hugely informative and gives plenty of context.  It also has a bibliography, but more importantly, it has a list of notes about certain panels.  Do not skip these notes!  In addition to providing a lot of insight into the myths of the characters themselves, there are a lot of funny comments like “Greeks raced in the nude (point and laugh)” which really bring new depths to the stories. (more…)

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