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Archive for the ‘Tiny Desk Concert’ Category

Claire Messud–“In Praise of Boredom” [Forum: How to Be a Parent] (Harper’s, August 2015)

Posted in A. Balkan, All Songs Considered, Ben Lerner, Boredom, Claire Messud, Ellen Rosenbush, Emma Donoghue, Essays, Harper's, Karl Taro Greenfeld, La Misa Negra, Martin Heidegger, Michelle Tea, NPR/PRI/PBS, Pamela Druckerman, Parenting, Rivka Galchen, Samuel Beckett, Sarah Manguso, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest on March 24, 2016| Leave a Comment »

augSOUNDTRACK: LA MISA NEGRA-“Sancocho” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2016).

misanegraLast week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners-up that they especially liked.  I want to draw attention to a couple of them.

La Misa Negra is a cumbia-loving band from Oakland, Calif.  There are eight members in the band.  There’s a drummer with a small kit but lots of frenetic drumming, and a bongo player who is also frenetic.  The percussion is pretty major in this band.

There’s also a sax, trumpet, clarinet, guitar and upright bass.  The guitar player does super fast ska chords, while the horns plays some insanely fast riffs.  The singer is full of yips and trills.  It’s a non-stop fun rollicking ride.

I have no idea what they’re singing about (it’s all in Spanish) and I just don’t care, (“Sancocho” is named after a hearty stew popular in several Latin American countries).

Their tiny desk is a school seat with the writing top attached to the side.  By the end it can’t contain the singer who has to get up and dance around too.

What a fun song.

[READ: February 10, 2016] “In Praise of Boredom”

The August 2015 Harper’s had a “forum” called How to Be a Parent.  Sometimes these forums are dialogues between unlikely participants and sometimes, like in this case, each author contributes an essay on the topic.  There are ten contributors to this Forum: A. Balkan, Emma Donoghue, Pamela Druckerman, Rivka Galchen, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Ben Lerner, Sarah Manguso, Claire Messud, Ellen Rosenbush and Michelle Tea.  Since I have read pieces from most of these authors I’ll write about each person’s contribution.

I don’t know Claire Messud, but I totally related to this essay,

She is about my age and explains that the world she grew up in no longer exists.  She says her parents, while wanting for nothing, were always frugal–they saved Ziploc bags and repaired things rather than threw them away.

They didn’t aspire to material wealth or popular culture, but rather they traveled a lot and had the children read.  But Claire says that as a child she would rather have her own record player and clothes from the Gap.

So when her mom went to work she grew absorbed in pop culture TV and she felt like she became less serious than her parents.

I agreed with this:

The comparative ease of our upbringing first inspired guilt, then defiance. If, as our parents said, we should be eternally grateful for our comfort, then couldn’t we be grateful without feeling bad about it? Why should we accept that the hard path was always superior? Why shouldn’t we enjoy life’s pleasures? Why believe that reading Beckett or, God forbid, Heidegger, was an innately more worthy activity than watching music videos? Says who?

She knows that reading Beckett is a stimulating hour, but she can spend that hour just as happily watching Scandal. (more…)

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Karl Taro Greenfeld–“Fever” [Forum: How to Be a Parent] (Harper’s, August 2015)

Posted in A. Balkan, All Songs Considered, Basketball, Ben Lerner, Claire Messud, Ellen Rosenbush, Emma Donoghue, Essays, Gwen Austin, Harper's, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Michelle Tea, NPR/PRI/PBS, Pamela Druckerman, Parenting, Rivka Galchen, Sarah Manguso, Sharon Van Etten, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest on March 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »

augSOUNDTRACK: GWEN AUSTIN-“Child” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2016).

maxresdefaultLast week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  I want to draw attention to a couple of them.

The production values of this video belie the quality and intensity of the song they play.

The video is set in a dark room with the only light coming from an open window.  The vocal is a bit staticy and at times too loud for the mic.  But that doesn’t overshadow the fact that this is a beautiful, sad song.  And that Gwen Austin has a powerful, somewhat haunting voice in the vein of Sharon Van Etten.

The music is simple Gwen on acoustic guitar and an accompaniment of a very echoey electric guitar Russell Marshall, but she sings with intense aching in her voice.  The song comes from Austin’s feminist folk opera about the nativity story, which I’d sure like to hear more about.

[READ: February 10, 2016] “Fever”

The August 2015 Harper’s had a “forum” called How to Be a Parent.  Sometimes these forums are dialogues between unlikely participants and sometimes, like in this case, each author contributes an essay on the topic.  There are ten contributors to this Forum: A. Balkan, Emma Donoghue, Pamela Druckerman, Rivka Galchen, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Ben Lerner, Sarah Manguso, Claire Messud, Ellen Rosenbush and Michelle Tea.  Since I have read pieces from most of these authors I’ll write about each person’s contribution.

I believe that everything I know from Taro Greenfeld I know from Harper’s magazines.

The title of this one had me preparing for something very different.  I imagined an article about illnesses and not a basketball team.  His daughter played for a team called Fever and he was called upon to be a coach because no one else would (that sounds familiar).

Unlike my own soccer league with many different teams, this basketball league had but two teams, and Fever played Sky every week for 12 weeks.  Karl was a first time coach and didn’t know much about how to be a coach.  The other coach was pretty good (he had a clipboard) and somehow managed to get all of the tall, talented players compared to Karl’s less experienced ones.

Since the played the same team every week, they lost 12 games in a row.  Which is pretty disheartening.  Especially when the games were pretty much blowouts.  He even lost a few players to disenchantment. (more…)

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Austin Smith–“Leap Day” (Harper’s, August 2015)

Posted in Alan Sparhawk, Austin Smith, Brokeback Mountain, Gaelynn Lea, Harper's, LGBTQ, Low, Short Story, Suicide, The Murder of Crows, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest on March 15, 2016| Leave a Comment »

augSOUNDTRACK: GAELYNN LEA-Tiny Desk Concert #514 (March 11, 2016).

graeGaelynn Lea won the Tiny Desk Contest and within a few days she was ready to appear for her formal Tiny Desk Concert.

She began her set with the prize winner, “Someday We’ll Linger In The Sun.”  The song was beautiful and haunting in the video, and it sounded just as good live.  She joked that with a loop pedal you have to be perfect, and it was.  Watching her play these notes is even more interesting than hearing them.

Gaelynn is clearly a little nervous, but she is still charming as she tells us how she got started in the music world.  She started fiddling because she had a crush on a boy who fiddled.  Simple as that.  She had been in a number of bands in Minnesota.  Then someone gave her a looping pedal and that changed everything for her.

She says that she began experimenting with the old and the new, and that the looping pedal allowed her to do things like play “Southwind.”  The song is 100 years old.  She loops a beautiful melody and then plays an excellent solo over the top it.  I think there’s something about the way she plays–her bowing seems to make her violin sound more like a cello or something–that makes her notes sound more haunting than another violinist might.

After the first two songs, Bob comes out to introduce Gaelynn.  He explains that she is a violin teacher and she has been playing for years and years.  And then he explains that she’s going to have accompaniment for the next two songs–Alan Sparhawk from Low!

Here’s how they met.  Gaelynn was playing at a farmer’s market with a guitar player.  Alan Sparhwawk who is also based in Duluth, MN, heard her playing.  Some time later, he called her (while she was at a wedding) and asked if she’d want to work on a project with him.  They made musis for a silent film and then formed the band The Murder of Crows.

And so Alan joins her for the last two songs.

“Bird” is an upbeat song with a lively lopped violin riff.  Alan plays slow guitars which flesh out the low end.  And then Gaelynn sings as the violin loops and Alan plays low notes.  Alan takes the second verse and then Gaelynn sings a round over the top of his voice.  It’s quite lovely.

She says she never wrote any songs until she met him, and she’s very grateful.

The final song is “Moment of Bliss.”  I really like the melody and vocal line of this song.  And again, the lyrics are really thoughtful.  Sparhawk’s slow guitar and low harmony voice really add depth to this lovely five minute song.  When she plays a looped solo at the end, it’s really beautiful.

[READ: January 25, 2016] “Leap Day”

I don’t think I’ve read too many stories where the plot of a movie is as instrumental to the story as it was in this one.

And when I say that that movie is Brokeback Mountain, it gives you a ton of context clues.

The story is a simple one.  Ernie Boettner is climbing up a grain silo in February.  And then we find out why.

Ernie is a farmer.  The townspeople of Park City, Illinois noticed that he seemed to get a lot of visits from the veterinarian Chester Bradbury.  There was nothing wrong with that per se, but it seemed like sometimes the vet’s truck was there over night.  Which seemed unusual. (more…)

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Joshua Cohen–“From the Palo Alto Sessions” (Harper’s, May 2015)

Posted in Excerpt, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gaelynn Lea, Gavin Bryars, Harper's, Huh?, Joshua Cohen, Technology, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest on March 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

may2015SOUNDTRACK: GAELYNN LEA-“Someday We’ll Linger In The Sun” (TINY DESK CONTEST WINNER 2016).

gaelynnYou never know what is going to win the Tiny Desk Contest–there are so many genres represented.  Will it big a big rocking band, a scrappy bluesy band, will it be a sweet lullaby, or, unexpectedly, will it be a haunting song by a woman with a fiddle.

Gaelynn Lea plays a violin which she loops.

As the song opens, the first violin notes are slow and haunting, almost hesitating.  Then she plays harmony notes over those (the spareness here reminds me of Gavin Bryars’ “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.”  Then she plays some pizzicato notes over the top of these.  It’s a beautiful, haunting melody.

After a minute her voice comes in.  It is unexpected.  It sounds slightly off, and yet somehow even more hauntingly beautiful for it.  Especially when she gets to the simple “chorus” of “and I love you.”  The melody doesn’t change through the song, that constant repeating riff, those slow pulls on the bow, the intermittent pizzicato notes and Lea’s voice continue as lyrics flow over you.

And what lyrics:

Our love’s a complex vintage wine
All rotted leaves and lemon rind
I’d spit you out but now you’re mine

Don’t tell me we’ve got time
The subtle thief of life
It slips away when we pay no mind

We pulled the weeds out til the dawn
Nearly too tired to carry on
Someday we’ll linger in the sun

Man.

After a few verses, she plays a solo over the top of it all.  It is as aching as the rest of the song.  Try not to cry while listening to it.

You can watch the video here.

[READ: January 8, 2015] “From the Palo Alto Sessions”

This is an excerpt from Cohen’s Book of Numbers.  I vaguely know Cohen (his first book Witz, was 800 pages and BoN is almost 600), but I don’t really know his writing.

This excerpt (I don’t know where it comes from the book) is a bit hard to get into: “Toward the end D-Unit had been working on the touchscreen.  Do not interrupt, we do not digress.”  Turns out that D-Unit is a person and the narrator is plural (or the royal we).  The story follows as “we” investigate D-Unit’s house and computer supplies.

There’ s a ton of tech speak, as well as what appears to be slang (I never figured out what “cur” meant in this book).

The language just piles up with sentences that build and stop and resume in another way.  I enjoyed this: “This career vegan who after his wife left him for a woman stuffed his freezer with enough cuts of venison to make 1.33 deer.” (more…)

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P.G. Wodehouse/The Goodale Brothers–Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense (2013)

Posted in David Goodale, Funny (ha ha), Hugh Laurie, Julieta Venegas, Marriage Trouble, P.G. Wodehouse, Play (Drama), Robert Goodale, Stephen Fry, Tiny Desk Concert, Unreliable narrator on March 11, 2016| Leave a Comment »

woosterSOUNDTRACK: JULIETA VENEGAS-Tiny Desk Concert #126 (May 9, 2011).

julietaJulieta Venegas has a sweet voice.  She plays accordion and guitar and, for this show, is accompanied by a clarinet and flute.  The whole concert is delicate and lovely.

She sings threes songs in Spanish but describes them in English.

“Si Tú No Estas” features her on the accordion.  She plays a delightfully simple riff that sounds jaunty on the little accordion.  The clarinet is a fitting accompaniment to her on this quiet song.  I love that it feels vaguely French, even though it is sung in Spanish.  This is about the people you leave at home when you travel.

“Debajo De Mi Lengual” (Under My Tongue) is a bit more folk sounding because she plays the song on guitar and is accompanied by a flute.  The song is about being insecure to talk to others.  The melody is simple, but the flute adds some lovely notes.

For “Bien O Mal” she stays on guitar but this time is accompanied by the accordion.  This song is the most rollicking (not very rollicking at all, of course, but the tempo is much faster.  The accordion mostly plays chords to flesh out the song.  The song sounds lovely, which is why it’s especially funny that at the end she seems unsure of just how good it was.

[READ: December 14, 2015] Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense

I have never read any of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories, although I have seen most of the series starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie (incomparably played).

This play is a “new” story written by the Goodale Brothers.  It is based on a bunch of Wodehouse’s pieces, particularly The Code of the Woosters (1938).  Robert and David Goodale were asked to put the above story on the stage.  So they worked on it and modified it and came up with this version.

They came up with the idea of Wooster telling one of his tales and Jeeves “helping” as only Jeeves can.  So in this production, there are only three actors.  But they play multiple parts each trying to flesh out Bertie’s story.  Wooster is Wooster, Jeeves is Jeeves and several others, and their friend Seppings plays many many roles, including some women and a nine foot tall man.

The story itself is intentionally convoluted and hilarious.  It involves an expensive creamer, a police officer, Bertie’s aunt and the ghastly woman Bertie might jut have to marry. (more…)

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Jesse Eisenberg–The Spoils (2015)

Posted in Beer, Drinking, Drugs, Fraud, Funny (ha ha), Gaby Moreno, Jesse Eisenberg, Kunal Nayyar, Sex, The Big Bang Theory, The Spoils, Tiny Desk Concert, Unlikable main character, Work on March 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »

spoilsSOUNDTRACK: GABY MORENO-Tiny Desk Concert #149 (August 15, 2011).

gabyGaby Moreno surprised me in this set.  Her first song “No Regrets,” begins like a gentle bossa nova sung in Spanish.  The song switches to English about midway through, but it retains that lovely bossa nova feel.  Morena’s voice is lovely and clear. She plays guitar and sings and is accompanied by Adam Levy, also on guitar.

So far, so good.

The second song, “Ave Que Emigra” begins as a gentle ballad, but quickly morphs into a kind of upbeat folk song also sung in Spanish (Moreno is from Guatemala).  It is a lovely song with some beautiful oooohs.

It’s the third song the surprised me.

“Sing Me Life” opens in a much darker vein–rough strummed guitars and a blues solo from Levy.  Even Moreno’s voice has gotten deeper and bluesier.  The song is sung in English and although she sounds like herself, she also sounds really different–not exactly angrier, but less sweet, more intense.  The “Hey hey hey’s” are a far cry from the sweet “ooooohs” of the previous song.  Levy plays a nice bluesy solo on this song as well.

Moreno has a great deal of diversity in her set and she handles it all really well.

[READ: October 20, 2015] The Spoils

I have enjoyed Eisenberg’s writing in the past.  But this was the first full play I had read by him (he has two others). It is very funny (and surprisingly vulgar).

There are five characters. Ben (played by Eisenberg when it was performed) owns the apartment where the action is set. He is the son of a wealthy man, going to college for “film” and basically enjoying himself as much as he can. He drinks, he smokes pot and he picks on his roommate (who might just be his only friend). His language is shockingly vulgar, dropping curses left and right.

His roommate is Kalyan (who in the performance was played by Kunal Nayyar (from The Big Bang Theory). Kalyan is from Nepal. He has come to NYU to study business and has even written book about economic conditions in Nepal. Kalyan is a bit dorky (he loves PowerPoint, which is used to great comic effect throughout the story). And he is trying to win over Reshma.

Reshma is Indian, but she has lived in the States all of her life, so she is really American.  She has high hopes for Kalyan, but it seems she fears he might not live up to his potential.

In the opening scene Kalyan is showing her a PowerPoint and being incredibly sweet to her.  When Ben walks in he is all crass and vulgar—funny but very unlikable.  He essentially makes Reshma leave (although as soon as he shows up we know she wants to leave anyhow) and then begins his tale. (more…)

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Fiona McFarlane–“Buttony” (New Yorker, March 7, 2016)

Posted in Bob Dylan, Fiona McFarlane, Laura Marling, New Yorker, Noah and the Whale, Set at School, Short Story, Surreal, Tiny Desk Concert, Tom Petty, Violence on March 7, 2016| Leave a Comment »

march7SOUNDTRACK: NOAH AND THE WHALE-Tiny Desk Concert #147 (August 10, 2011).

noahI know Noah and the Whale a little.  I don’t think I realized they were from England, especially since the lead singer/guitarist looks so much like Ben Stiller (with a big fro).  I’ve enjoyed what I’ve heard from them, although I can’t say I know that much about them (although  see that Laura Marling was briefly in the band).  For this Tiny Desk, there are just two men (one Noah, the other the Whale, perhaps?  No, Charlie Fink (vocals, guitar), and Tom Hobden (violin, vocals).

Evidently they had a drummer but he left the band to pursue academic success so they enlisted a dreaded drum machine.  (In the blurb, Stephen Thompson talks about how shocked everyone as to hear it).  The one bad thing about the machine of course is that it limits then from playing anything spontaneously.  But they sound very good even with the machine.

There’s a sort of Tom Petty/Bob Dylan vibe to the first song with the super catchy spelled out chorus of “L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.”  When the violinist sings harmonies, the  song sounds especially good.

He ends the first song by saying, “It’s most peculiar, this event.”

“Blue Skies” does not have the drum machine.  It is a mellow, pretty song with Fink’s delicate voice singing a breakup song.

“Waiting for My Chance to Come” is a upbeat song (with drum machine).  Fink switches to acoustic guitar giving this a bigger more vibrant folk sound.  It’s really catchy and fun to sing along to.

I remember the last time I listened to Noah and the Whale (from an NPR show covering the Newport Folk Festival), I wanted to hear more from them.  And once again I do, although perhaps with a full band (and yes, they have broken up).

[READ: March 3, 2016] “Buttony”

I re-read what I had written about McFalane’s previous story which I read in 2013. I enjoyed the first section (which was very short) but felt a little less grand about the second half.

This story (although it was much shorter) had a similar quality.

The story is only two pages and the first part is so charming.  It is set in a school.  The teacher allows her students to go outside to play “buttony.”

The game is a simple one, but it has some kind of near magical significance for the kids. (more…)

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Luke Mogelson–“Total Solar” (New Yorker, February 29, 2016)

Posted in Amanda Shires, Culture Shock, Death, Luke Mogelson, New Yorker, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Translators, Violence, War, Yuck! on March 6, 2016| Leave a Comment »

2292015SOUNDTRACK: AMANDA SHIRES-Tiny Desk Concert #146 (August 3, 2011).

shiresAlthough the blurb suggests that I might know Amanda Shires, in fact I do not.

Shires has a powerful non-vibratoed voice and she plays several different instruments–what looks like a giant ukulele as  well as the fiddle.  She’s accompanied by Rod Picott on the guitar.  He really seems to flesh out her instruments very well.

As to her sound, she explains before the final song, “I do have one happy song, we’re just not going to do it.”

The most remarkable thing about the first song, “Swimmer…” is her excellent whistling of the main melody.  It is piercing and very catchy.  Actually the whole song is quite pretty

Before starting the second song she asks if they are in a fast mood or slow mood.  When the answer is fast, she immediately says they’ll play “Shake the Walls.”  I really liked how the opening notes were plucked and strummed on the violin.  The song is pretty simple and quiet until she plays a noisy violin solo in the middle which really livens things up.

Before the final song she asks if they’d like a song about suicide.  Someone whoops in assent and they laugh.  So she says they’ll play a song about trains. (“when you need a train, it never comes”).  I really like the chord progression in the chorus.

Despite the downer music, the duo clearly had a fin time.  Picott ends by saying “Its hard playing for smart people instead of our usual crowd.”

[READ: March 6, 2015] “Total Solar”

The protagonist of this is a journalist in Afghanistan.  He has been speaking with a researcher from the United Nations Ornithological Department, who keeps introducing conversations with “If you really want something to write about…”

But rather than taking notes, he is drawing pictures of himself committing suicide in various gruesome ways.  This relates to his writing a story about a contractor who’d been executed in a new way–using wire rather than a knife.

Yes the story is pretty brutal. (more…)

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Don DeLillo–“sine cosine tangent” (New Yorker, February 22, 2016)

Posted in Don DeLillo, Excerpt, Julien Baker, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Parenting, Tiny Desk Concert, Torres on March 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

CoverStory-2-22-16-879x1200-1455509711 SOUNDTRACK: JULIEN BAKER-Tiny Desk Concert #513 (March 7, 2016).

julienI had never heard of Julien Baker before this Tiny Desk Concert.  Indeed, she looks young enough that perhaps this is her first concert (it isn’t).

Baker plays a lovely, slightly echoey, but otherwise very clear electric guitar.  Her tone is so clear and quiet.  And her voice is also incredibly delicate.  Watching her play and sing it’s amazing you can hear anything at all, and yet she does not wilt in any way–her music is delicate but not whispered.

As with many players these days, she uses a looping pedal to great effect.  For the first song, “Sprained Ankle” she loops the lovely harmonics at the beginning of the song and then allows for the multiple layers to play.  Her vocals are as gentle as the harmonics, and yet, again, not whispery.  At barely 2 minutes, the song leaves you wanting more.

She talks about doing a new song for them called “Sad Song #11” since “I already have ten sad songs.”  She thanks everyone for their “courteous laughter.”  And then plays another beautiful song now officially titled, “Funeral Pyre.”  She has a very nice way with words: “Ash for a decorative urn you keep on your mantelpiece like a trophy for everything.”  There’s a beautiful layered guitar solo at the end too.

The introductory guitar lines from “Something” are really lovely–her sound is just so clear–and once again, the song is beautiful and haunting with her repeated lyrics sounding more powerful with each go around.

The blurb about the show references Torres, and I totally see the deference.  They don’t sound anything alike in that Torres is brash and loud, but they have that same up-close and intimate vibe.  For Baker, it makes you want to lean is as she sings.

[READ: February 17, 2016] “sine cosine tangent”

I have always meant to read more from DeLillo, I just never do.

And while I have enjoyed all of the things I have read by him, I didn’t love this story so much.  Okay, I’ve since found out that this is an excerpt, which changes things.  I’ll keep my review the same but with bracketed realizations pertaining to the novel.

This is the story of a young man (his age in the story is unclear to me, and I’m not sure how much distance separates the present from the past [presumably this is covered in the novel]) and his relationship with his father.  His father is a successful businessman but the son says that he “shaved a strip of hair along the middle of my head, front to back, I was his personal Antichrist.”

His father left when he was 13, although he never found out why.  Years later, he sees his father, Mr Ross Lockhart on the TV, discussing the ecology of unemployment in Geneva. (more…)

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George Saunders–“Mother’s Day” (New Yorker, February 8 & 15, 2016)

Posted in Death, Funny (ha ha), George Saunders, Monsieur Periné, New Yorker, Parenting, Sex, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on March 4, 2016| Leave a Comment »

282016SOUNDTRACK: MONSIEUR PERINÉ-Tiny Desk Concert #512 (March 4, 2016).

perimne I feel like it’s been a while since NPR’s Felix Contreras has had a Tiny Desk for a band playing Latin American music.  And Monsieur Periné (French name and all) plays some really fun Latin American music.  They are from Colombia, which is evidently known for its Afro-Colombian cumbia.

But they don’t play strictly cumbia.  Their long set plays around with tempos and styles.  It is fun, fun, fun with a lot of swing and big horns.  There’s some great electric guitar and electric upright bass and two fantastic drummers. There’s even a 1920s jazz feel to some of their music (the guitars especially)

This is all set behind the lead singer’s beautiful voice (and the guys’ harmonies).  And the great riffs from the saxophone nad trombone.

The first song “Nuestra Canción” (Our Song) opens slowly with several different tempos.  I love that once the singing starts,  the two guitars play very different things that works so well together.  I like watching the drummer and percussionist playing the same rhythms.  And it’s especially interesting when this six-minute, very jazzy-feeling song (albeit it sung in Spanish) takes a turn in the middle of the song to sound very cumbia.

“Sabor A Mi” (Taste of Me) is a bolero–very dancey.  The guitarist has switched to a twelve string instrument with a very small body.  I assume it’s a guitar but who knows. The lead guitar is actually played on an acoustic guitar outfitted with a pick up.  The sax player has switched to clarinet and the clarinet and trombone y play a great melody together.

“La Muerte” is 7 minutes long with a spoken introduction.  This made me very curious because the introduction is in Spanish for a song that she sings in part in French (and in Spanish).  The horns sound great on this song.  And the guitar solo comes in it a has very surf guitar sound while still saying very Latin American.  There’s a long instrumental section that slows things down and then they come blasting out with their great riffs.

This band is a lot of fun and would be great at a party.

[READ: February 4, 2016] “Mother’s Day”

I have really been enjoying the work of Saunders lately.  I particularly enjoy his darker comic pieces, but there’s something about his non funny pieces that is also pretty grand.

It’s never clear if you’re going to get funny Saunders or not when you start a story.

This one even seems like it might be funny as we slowly learn more and more about one of the Mothers featured this Mother’s Day.

The story is told in that strangely detached way that Saunders has where it seems like what seems like a third person may actually be the inner monologue of the narrator.  But told at a distance?  “Paulie had flown in and Pammy had taken her to Mother’s Day lunch and now was holding her hand.  Holding her hand!  Right on Pine.  The girl who once slapped her own mother for attempting to adjust her collar.” (more…)

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