Posted in Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris on November 7, 2020| 1 Comment »
[November 7, 2020] Kamala Harris!
On August 15, 2019, I made my first donation to the Kamala Harris for President campaign. It was early days then, but she and Elizabeth Warren were my top choices.
In December 2019 Kamala Harris dropped out of the campaign after a pretty steep rise and surprisingly quick fall.
Then in August 2020, almost a year after I first donated, Kamala Harris was selected as Joe Biden’s running mate.
Now, today, she is the Vice President-elect! (more…)
Posted in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ani DiFranco, Brenda Jones, Dogs, donald tRUMP, Feminism, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Krishan Trotman, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, Parenting, Ronald Reagan, Sexism, Tegan and Sara on November 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »
SOUNDTRACK: TEGAN AND SARA-“Proud” (1999).
Each chapter in this book is headed by a quote from a different song. I chose this Tegan and Sara song because it sounds so remarkably different from their current stuff (things do change in 20 years, how about that).
This song sounds a lot like it was made by Ani Difranco (early in her career). It opens with a shuffling acoustic guitar. A chunky melody with scratching between chords. Then an interesting and off-kilter drum beat kicks in.
The singer (I never know which one is singing) has a kind of snarling power to her voice
Freedom’s rough
So we take our stand and fight for tomorrow
Finally we got something something we can
Bring down the house with
The second verse gets much bigger with a fat bass
The middle section has a super catchy repeating of “no no no” in a kind of scatting style and then soaring vocals.
The song quietens down again for the verses until the bass comes back for the raucous ending.
The quote that the book uses is
Freedom and blood
I make my mark and fight for tomorrow
Sounds like Elizabeth Warren to me.
[READ: November 4, 2020] Elizabeth Warren
This is one of four books in the Queens of Resistance series. The series celebrates a different woman fighting oppression and making waves in the United States government. [The other books are about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters].
The books are written by Brenda Jones who was communications director for Rep. John Lewis, and Krishan Trotman, an editor at Hachette who specializes in multicultural voices and social justice.
This series is aimed at younger readers, young women mostly, and is meant to be an inspirational account of women who are fighting for justice throughout their lives and especially during the present administration.
This book acts as a biography as well as an up to the minute account (as of May 2020) of what this powerful women is doing.
I wanted Elizabeth Warren to be President. She was my first choice (with Kamala Harris being a very close second). So this book was like candy to me. I knew a lot about Warren, but I really didn’t know much about her backstory. This book fills all that in. (more…)
Posted in Anal Trump, Cattle Decapitation, donald tRUMP, Goblin Cock, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Pinback, Politicians on November 3, 2020| 1 Comment »
SOUNDTRACK: ANAL TRUMP-The First 100 Songs (2018).
On Election Day 2020, what better music to listen to than Anal Trump?
Anal Trump are a grindcore act made up of Rob and Travis Trump.
The true identities of Rob and Travis Trump remain shrouded in mystery. Are they the unwanted bastard children of the Philanderer-in-Chief? Regular citizens transformed into angry mutants by the deluge of toxic waste spewing from the 45th President’s mouth? Or simply two dudes from high-profile San Diego musical acts who decided to pay tribute to grindcore pioneers Anal Cunt through the words of a man who embodies that band’s name?
Indeed, the band is made up of Rob Crow (from Pinback, Goblin Cock and a dozen other bands) and Travis Ryan, vocalist for Cattle Decapitation. They write classic grindcore songs. The longest song on this collection is 29 seconds and it feels like an epic compared to the rest, most of which are around 3 seconds.
Most of the songs have a sample of tRUMP speaking (which is certainly a turnoff) that’s usually followed by a blast of noise and inaudible growling.
The First 100 Songs produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Rob Trump, boasts a hundred songs in eleven minutes — their entire recorded output to date. From 2016’s pre-election That Makes Me Smart! EP all the way through the newer material contained in Thoughts, Prayers, and The Golden Age of Willful Ignorance, this truly exhaustive overview covers all the bases. With songs based on actual quotes by the man (“I Like The Soldiers Who DON’T Get Captured”) to creative interpretations (“My Cabinet Is Nuanced As Shit”) to Putnam-esque bon mots (“Renewable Resources Are Gay”), there’s a smorgasbord of Trumpiliciousness! According to Rob, their material has a universal appeal: “One of the things about this stuff is that, since most of it is taken right from his mouth or ideology, a Trumpster should be fine with it as much as a Bernie person would enjoy laughing at it. It’s just a mirror and that, in itself, is terrifying.”
This album can be purchased on CD (all 12 minutes of it). There’s a couple of songs where I thought I could hear lyrics, There’s a couple of songs where there was actually a melody (and one song where you could actually hear a bass line). But mostly this is just a lot of short noisy songs.
Rob and Travis Trump aren’t gonna fill your ears with talk of universal healthcare or equal voting rights or any of that socialist stuff — although they donated 100% of the proceeds from their EPs to non-profit organizations like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. They just want to point out that the most powerful man in the world is a hate-mongering clown, using shrieks and micro-riffs as their chosen vehicle. Anal Trump will soon take this show on the road with help from Justin Trump on bass and John Putin on drums, but as for their future plans? “I just want this ugly chapter of human history to finally be over.”
The best part of the album are the song titles. Because there are 100, I have put them after the body.
[WROTE: November 2, 2020] A worldwide embarrassment
Absolutely no story feels appropriate to post on Election Day, this global travesty.
When Barack Obama won all those eons ago, the world felt brighter. I recall going to the grocery store and seeing another person and we smiled at each other and acknowledged what a good day it was.
Four years ago, when tRUMP lost the election but became president because of an antiquated system that explicitly denies a democratic election, it was as if a dark cloud spewed bile all over the country. We were supposed to have our first female president. She was the most politically qualified person to run for office in my lifetime. Like her or not, she served our country admirably and was poised to break the glass ceiling that has now grown several layers thicker. (more…)
Posted in Chick Webb, Death, Down Beat, Ella Fitzgerald, Frances Carrol & Her Coquettes, Harry S. Truman, Huh?, Joy Williams, New Yorker, Schmitz Sisters Family Orchestra, Set at School, Short Story, The Bible, Viola Smith on October 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »
SOUNDTRACK: FRANCES CARROLL & HER COQUETTES featuring VIOLA SMITH-“Snake Charmer” (1939).
Drummer Viola Smith died a couple of days ago at the age of 107. ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN (a month shy of 108). That’s pretty fascinating in itself. But even more fascinating is that she was an amazing drummer at a time when women didn’t play drums. And not “amazing for a woman” or anything patronizing like that, check out the video of her playing “Snake Charmer.”
Check out her drum kit, check out the speed, check out the power. Check out the arial toms and the way she hits them without it even seeming like she is. Wow, I wish I’d heard of her sooner.
Here’s some relevant quotes from an obituary in The Guardian
Smith took up drumming as a teenager in Wisconsin, when her father assembled the Schmitz Sisters Family Orchestra with his eight daughters. Her showcase was “The Snake Charmer,” a jazzy arabesque with explosive drum-fills.
Because she was the sixth daughter in the family, she said, her older sisters got the strings and brass. “My dad said, ‘Now, we need a drummer!’ Thank God, I was it.”
In 1938, Smith formed another all-female orchestra, The Coquettes, with her bass playing sister Mildred. The band moved to New York in 1942, where Smith studied under the legendary snare-drum innovator Billy Gladstone.
In the same year, as men were being drafted to war and women taking their place in factories, Viola wrote a now-famous article for Down Beat magazine, arguing for the inclusion of women in the big bands of the day.
“Many of the star instrumentalists of the big name bands are being drafted,” she wrote, under the title Give Girl Musicians A Break! “Instead of replacing them with what may be mediocre talent, why not let some of the great girl musicians of the country take their places?
“We girls have as much stamina as men. There are many girl trumpet players, girl saxophonists and girl drummers who can stand the grind of long tours and exacting one-night stands. The girls of today are not the helpless creatures of an earlier generations.
Smith found it difficult to lead the orchestra from behind the drums, so she turned over those duties to Frances Carroll. But at the height of her success, Smith performed with Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb, as well as at the second inauguration for the 33rd president, Harry Truman, in 1949.
I haven’t even mentioned how good The Coquettes are. They swing big time and this song is really fun. The only thing worse than hearing about a great musician after they have died is realizing that there are almost no recordings of her playing.
Here’s another page from The Future Heart with lots of videos and interviews with Viola.
[READ: October 26, 2020] “Nettle”
I really enjoyed the way this story opened. It is about Willie, who, as the story opens, is a young boy. Willie’s teacher told the class that she would be guarding them and that “not one of them would be lost, except the one who was destined to be lost.”
When the boy told his mother what Miss Rita said, his mother replied,
That happens to be from the Bible… When people take words from the Bible and repeat them to young children, or to anyone, for that matter, they’re nuts. Don’t pay any attention to her.”
She says that maybe when he’s older he can leave that school and go to the one his daddy went to.
He would visit his daddy often in his room. His daddy was always playing the same piece to music. He told his daddy about a book he was reading in class. His daddy replied that he had read that same book when he was younger: rewrite the whole thing. (more…)
Posted in David Rabe, donald tRUMP, Fears, Guns, Huh?, Matthew Caws, Myths, Nada Surf, New Yorker, Politicians, Short Story, Violence on October 26, 2020| Leave a Comment »
SOUNDTRACK: MATTHEW CAWS-“When History Comes” (2020).
Recently Rough Trade released an online album Talk – Action = Zero, Vol. 2. It was a collection of songs with the intent of giving money to get out the vote organizations like Spread The Vote. There were some 90 songs on it. One of them was from Matthew Caws from Nada Surf.
On the most recent Nada Surf album, the song “So Much Love,” featured a lengthy spoken sort of rambling section. Caws’ voice works quite well for that fast spoken section and when I saw them play it live, he was able to recite (or read, he had the lyric sheet in front of him) the whole thing while still playing which was pretty cool.
So this new song follows in that model. The song is a simple riff that repeats. And the lyrics are probably not spontaneous, but are pretty close. There’s also a chorus. It’s really catchy, just like all Nada Surf songs tend to be.
My contribution is a protest song; a get out the vote song. Will any Republicans hear this song outside of my liberal music bubble? I don’t know. I want them to. Maybe there is a way.
What should a protest song say?
I protest the dismantling of the Postal Service which right now means the dismantling of democracy.
I protest the denial and protection of systemic racism.
I protest the dismantling of regulations that protect public land.
I protest the dismantling of the trust between a country and its media.
Am I naive enough to think that naively expressing these things can change anyone’s mind? YES
I’m naive and a dreamer but also ambitious. I believe in people. I believe in change.
I’ll say this I vote Democrat but I don’t hate republicans. I just hate this administration.
When history comes and sticks out its thumb / asking you for a ride / I hope that you see how fast it can be / it goes by in the blink of an eye.
We’re stuck in this boat / it’s barely afloat / we’re watching the water rise / History’s ill / it needs some good will / and we’re so tired of the lies
We’re all canaries in the coal mine. We have to say what we see. We’re all the band on the Titanic. Don’t stop when the ship goes down.
Let’s be cheerleaders for postal workers. Cheerleaders for voters for braving the long lines of the maskless.
We implore that you nurture your inner artist. That you make something for yourself so that you have fulfillment. So that you don’t seek satisfaction in the hot flame of mockery, the perversity of trolling, the thrill of baiting and phishing.
I believe that we’re all made out of love and good things. We just get sick
When history comes and sticks out its thumb / asking you for a ride / I hope that you see how fast it can be / it goes by in the blink of an eye.
We’re stuck in this boat / it’s barely afloat / we’re watching the water rise / History’s ill / it needs some good will / and we’re so tired of the lies
Come out of your shell / the country’s unwell / we really need you to fight.
[instrumental break]
I’m an atheist and I had a friend in college who was Christian. He belonged to a Christian group, I can’t remember which one but he wore a lapel pin with his name on it. Anyway, really lovely guy. We were both in film class and we’d get together once in a while to study.
Then one day we were saying goodby before winter break in front of the library. The sky was dramatic, a whirlwind of leaves was nearby. He gave me the hard sell. He said, “think about it… eternal life.” It was moving. I knew he wanted the best for me and in that spirit I’d like to say to you:
Imagine that the left don’t want to destroy America, because we don’t. We just want it to be more fair. We want it to live up to its promise and that’s because we love it so much. Don’t be afraid, we;re all right. I’ll tell you what’s fake news… it’s that we’re bad people. We’re not. [It’s] that we want trump to fail.
I didn’t want him to fail. I wanted him to do great. He didn’t. But I wanted him to.
He makes me feel bad. He makes other people feel bad too. That doesn’t set a good example. Sometimes it just comes down to that: don’t make people feel bad. And for every decision think about how it affects poor people the most. Think about how it affects children.
You know…
Alright go register go vote.
So simply stated. so true. What a great song. I hope people outside his bubble hear it.
[READ: October 21, 2020] “Suffocation Theory”
This story started out rather strange and I thought it was going to coalesce into something enjoyable. But it never really did.
Out of the blue Amanda told the narrator they were moving. He liked their apartment just fine and don’t want to move, but she told him the movers were already outside.
He watches a lot of news and everything is terrible. Killings with guns, bombs and cars. He is amazed that people have the irresistible idea “that killing a bunch of strangers would solve whatever problem they thought they couldn’t solve any other way.”
The new place is terrible. It feels like a giant warehouse with rooms and lots of empty space. The bathroom doesn’t have a shower. The neighborhood is terrible. They also have a roommate.
The roommate is a jerk. He jokingly points a gun at the narrator. (more…)
Posted in Alanis Morissette, Aurora, Coronavirus, Hospitals, Joe Biden, Lorrie Moore, New Yorker, Short Story on October 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »
SOUNDTRACK: AURORA-“Thank U” (2020).
The Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls series is soon to be releasing a record Good Night Songs for Rebel Girls.
Unfortunately, the site doesn’t list the songs on the disc (yet).
The first song from it that I’m aware of is Aurora’s cover of Alanis Morissette’s “Thank U.”
I don’t know that I’ve heard Aurora sing another person’s song before. I kind of expected her version to be radically different–uniquely Aurora. But in fact, her version is quite faithful to the original.
The music is understated (Aurora’s music is a little softer) and when Aurora starts singing, it almost sounds like Alanis. The big difference comes in some of the vowels, in which Aurora’s voice glides through the sounds in a slightly different way (a little smoother, perhaps).
In the original, Alanis’ “thank you silence” line is a little harsh sounding. Aurora’s is a little as well–it must be a very sharp note or tone to hit.
Alanis’s song is based around some thumping drums and bigger swells. Aurora keeps the whole thing lower key and the cover works beautifully.
[READ: October 24, 2020] “Face Time”
This is actually the second story I’ve read about COVID. As I was reading it I was surprised that it was about COVID–that it was so current. The story even mentions Tom Hanks having COVID which happened in March. This story was published in September and was clearly finished before then (I don’t know how much lead time a story needs). So that’s pretty quick. And it’s pretty spot on.
There’s not a lot to the story, in a sense. A woman, one of three adult daughters, is FaceTiming her father who is in a nursing home. Her father caught COVID while in the facility. He is now in an isolation room being monitored by nurses in full hazmat gear.
The daughters can only talk to him through FaceTime. He is older and does not understand the technology, so the nurses have to set up the connection. (more…)
Posted in Black Lives Matter, Coronavirus, Demagogues, donald tRUMP, Excerpt, Hingston & Olsen, Little Big Town, Murder, Politicians, Projections Box, Quarantine, Rebecca Romney, Religion, Ronald Reagan, Sci-fi, Science, Sexism, The Future, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence on October 6, 2020| Leave a Comment »
SOUNDTRACK: LITTLE BIG TOWN-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #91 (October 6, 2020).
Little Big Town is a country band that has been around for a while. I feel like I’ve heard of them, but I’m not sure.
Evidently the band is really the four main singers, but they have added more touring members for this Concert.
They open with “Nightfall.” It has nice folkie guitar and Karen Fairchild sings with a strong folksinger style. The snaps from Hubert Payne’s drums really ring out in a cool way. Thee upright bass John Thomasson adds a nice anchor to the melody.
I thought maybe they weren’t all that country after all. But as soon as the chorus jumps in and the accents start flying–especially the high notes from Kimberly Schlapman–the country has come into the house. The song is catchy though.
Up next guitarist Phillip Sweet jokes is the “most profound thing” they’ve done. “Wine, Beer, Whiskey” opens with a surprise trumpet intro from Jacob Bryant. Although songs about drinking are about as cliché as they come, the stompin,’ dopey tone is quite fun and Jimi Westbrook’s lead delivery sells it well.
They apparently use some songwriters known as the Love Junkies who came up with “Girl Crush.” There’s some nice harmonies on this track. You really can’t hear keyboard player Akil Thompson on the other songs, but his chords ring through here. Westbrook puts down his guitar while Sweet plays.
They end with “Boondocks” their first hit about where they come from. I like the bowed bass and Evan Weatherford’s slide guitar lead, but the thought of thousands of people stompin’ along to these lyrics is a tad disturbing.
[READ: October 5, 2020] Parable of the Talents [an excerpt]
During the COVID Quarantine, venerable publisher Hingston & Olsen created, under the editorship of Rebecca Romney, a gorgeous box of 12 stories. It has a die-cut opening to allow the top book’s central image to show through (each book’s center is different). You can get a copy here. This is a collection of science fiction stories written from 1836 to 1998. Each story imagines the future–some further into the future than others. As it says on the back of the box
Their future. Our present. From social reforms to climate change, video chat to the new face of fascism, Projections is a collection of 12 sci-fi stories that anticipated life in the present day.
About this story, Romney writes:
I’ve ended this collection with a meteor. An African -America woman born with “hyperempathy” must navigate the 2020as and 2030s in a hellscape formed by climate change disasters… The reader is introduced to a rising demagogue whose slogan in “make America great again.” Did that send chills down your spine?
At the time she was writing, however, it’s more likely she was inspired by the past than by the future. When Ronald Reagan accepted the presidential nomination from the 1980 Republican National Committee, he gave a speech in which he promised, “For those who’ve abandoned hope, we’ll restore hope and we’ll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again. Butler perceived the problems behind that phrase and used science fiction to explore how such a mindset could lead to history repeating itself, resulting in story that is even more powerful today than when she first wrote it.
I first looked at the date of 1998 and thought it was so current, not exactly realizing it was 22 years (and a lifetime) ago. Without even reading the story, just reading the above paragraph, it’s pretty easy to see exactly what Reagan wrought. He really was the beginning of the end for the country.
And Butler could totally read the writing on the wall.
Not much happens in this excerpt. A farm is burned and most people killed. the refugees take shelter with the narrator at their farm/commune.
It’s the details below that are so chilling. (more…)
Posted in Black Lives Matter, Coronavirus, Fears, Feminism, Free Speech, Hingston & Olsen, Hiromi Kawakami, L. Timmel Duchamp, Politicians, Prison, Privacy, Projections Box, Quarantine, Racism, Rebecca Romney, Sci-fi, Science, Sexism, The Future, Tiny Desk Concert on October 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »
SOUNDTRACK: LINDA DIAZ-Tiny Desk Concert (October 5, 2020).
In the past I’ve been quite aware of the Tiny desk Contest winner. But this year, with the pandemic , it passed me by completely.
So I don’t know anything about Diaz or any of the other competitors, except for what I just looked up now.
And I find it a little cheaty that she won because
Diaz actually made an appearance at the Tiny Desk last year, as a backup singer for Jordan Rakei.
However, she seems very nice and I’m happy for her that she won, especially after reading the blurb she wrote for this concert.
At one point, we finally had everything set and ready to go. Then, days before the shoot, I tested positive for COVID-19. I will spare you all the details (lots of tears, lots of phone calls), but I am so grateful for my band, the NPR Music team and the Javits Center for going above and beyond for me, the human as much as me, the musician.
That’s right, the Javits Center. This set is filmed on op of the Javits Center fifty days before the election. That’s September 15–potentially a chilly day to be on top of a New York City building. Also, who knew the top of the Javits Center was green and lush?
But more important than any of that is this quote that she reiterates in the set and mentioned earlier this year, that “Black joy is radical.”
“I do think it is a radical thing to be like, ‘I’m happy and I’m focusing on my joy and I’m focusing on my purpose and I’m not necessarily focusing on an audience or what other people want from me,’ ” she says. “But truly, I am recognizing the things in my life that are good, and many of those things are coming from my community. I think in that way, it’s super radical to love yourself as a Black person in this time.”
She sings three songs from her Magic EP. She says that the EP was inspired by her favorite book The Ten Loves of Nishino Paperback by Hiromi Kawakami. I find it a little strange that he favorite book came out only last year but whatever.
I don’t know a lot about R&B (duh), so I can’t honestly see what would have set her apart from the 6,000 other entries. Her voice is lovely. Her songs, like “Magic” are gentle and sweet. But I don’t find her any more memorable than many other singers.
Having said that, her Tiny Desk Contest winning song “Green Tea Ice Cream” is really catchy and of the three is the most musically interesting. It opens (like the other two songs) with sprinkling of gentle keys from Jade Che and a mildly funky bass from “Fat Mike” Mike Fishman (who co wrote and produced the record). Her backing singers, Bianca B. Muniz and Jacqueline A. Muniz (the only two who aren’t socially distanced up there because they are sisters) really shine in their backing vocals here.
Throughout the set drummer Andrés Valbuena plays some cool drums and percussion sounds, but they really stand out on this song.
After showing some of the personal effects she brought with her (I wonder if doing the Tiny Desk here instead of at the actual desk with the in house audience was less nerve-wracking), she encourages everyone to vote.
Then it’s on to the final song “Honesty” which is about “speaking your mind and talking about what’s important to you and communicating with others and how that’s a really scary thing to do.”
The set is pleasant and enjoyable, but far less memorable than past winners.
[READ: October 2, 2020] “The Forbidden Words of Margaret A.”
During the COVID Quarantine, venerable publisher Hingston & Olsen created, under the editorship of Rebecca Romney, a gorgeous box of 12 stories. It has a die-cut opening to allow the top book’s central image to show through (each book’s center is different). You can get a copy here. This is a collection of science fiction stories written from 1836 to 1998. Each story imagines the future–some further into the future than others. As it says on the back of the box
Their future. Our present. From social reforms to climate change, video chat to the new face of fascism, Projections is a collection of 12 sci-fi stories that anticipated life in the present day.
About this story, Romney writes
In this story an imprisoned Black woman is forbidden to speak because her words are too powerful. I’m including it here for two reasons. First, because it captures my central theme of predicting not just individual pieces so technology, but also what t feels like living in 2020. I read this story an I recognized its truth: that a woman’s words can be powerful, but they can just as often be viewed as dangerous. The second reason I included it is because it is really, really good.
Romney is right, this story is really, really good. It is also pretty simply summed up by her first sentence.
The story is written as a report for The National Journalists’ Association for the Recovery of The Freedom of the Press.
The report is from the journalist who was able to meet Margaret A. in prison. (more…)
Posted in Black Lives Matter, Coronavirus, Dystopia, Earthquakes, Environmentalism, Flood, Garcia Peoples, Hingston & Olsen, James Blish, New York City, Non-fiction, Politicians, Projections Box, Quarantine, Rebecca Romney, Sci-fi, Science, The Future on October 3, 2020| Leave a Comment »
SOUNDTRACK: GARCIA PEOPLES-Hear Here Presents (2020).
Sometimes it takes a band you like to introduce you to something you didn’t know about.
Like Hear Here Presents, a non-profit studio in Wisconsin that records bands in a small setting with great audio quality. And there are some fantastic bands (and yes, many many more that I haven’t heard of) on their page.
The band just released their session from this live show on bandcamp.
Back in January, Garcia Peoples went into the studio at Hear Here Presents for a session.
I’m not sure how long the sessions usually are, but this one runs about 35 minutes and consists of two songs.
Up first is what they are calling “Hear Here Jam.” It’s 12 plus minutes of a jamming instrumental. It’s impression how tight these guys are that they can improv for 12 minutes and not only not step on each others toes, but actually make a composition that sounds interesting.
There’s a raging guitar section at around three minutes and an impressive build to a peak around 8 minutes before finishing up a few minutes later. Having the three guitar of Tom Malach, Danny Arakaki, and Derek Spaldo allows for terrific interplay and a depth of sound.
That depth of sound is really evident on the second song, which opens with the introduction to “One Step Beyond.” Of course, before they start that, there’s some tuning to be done, with some snippets of recognizable riffs: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, “Hey Joe,” “Sweet Child of Mine.”
But once everyone is ready, it’s down to business. It’s fun picking out which guitars are playing what in the complex intro to “One Step.” It’s impressive the way the three guitars can keep the looping melody original and changing while bassist Andy Cush more or less take a lead role.
It’s also important to keep an eye (or an ear) on drummer Cesar Arakaki because he can keep a beat and keep it from being dull as well.
Then after nine and a half minutes of intro, the band shifts gears into the rocking “Feel So Great,” a terrific song with a fantastic musical bridge. Ringing guitars and a super cool bass line propel the song before the chill chorus.
Not content to let a short, catchy song end their set, they proceed to stretch of “Feel So Good” starting around 15 minutes. Multi-instrumentalist Pat Gubler trades his keyboard for flute as the psychedelia commences. After some raging guitar work up until about twenty minutes, the band slows things down to ring to a close.
The only thing disappointing about this set is that when the song is over, you can hear them talking and someone says, “we can do another one,: just as the audio cuts out. What else did they play????
[READ: September 24, 2020] We All Die Naked [an excerpt]
During the COVID Quarantine, venerable publisher Hingston & Olsen created, under the editorship of Rebecca Romney, a gorgeous box of 12 stories. It has a die-cut opening to allow the top book’s central image to show through (each book’s center is different). You can get a copy here. This is a collection of science fiction stories written from 1836 to 1998. Each story imagines the future–some further into the future than others. As it says on the back of the box
Their future. Our present. From social reforms to climate change, video chat to the new face of fascism, Projections is a collection of 12 sci-fi stories that anticipated life in the present day.
About this story, Romney writes
[In 1896] Svante Arrhenius first calculated the increase in Earth’s surface temperature caused by increases in industrial carbon production — what we now know as the greenhouse effect. … As far as I know, James Blish is the first science-fiction writer to imagine an apocalypse caused by climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. It’s a biting satire, simultaneously bleak and gregarious, that catches the characters on the brink of catastrophe through climate change.
To me, this story felt a little preachy. But then, I’m reading it after fifty years of this kind of story already existing. I imagine it was pretty impactful back in the era of Silent Spring (if sci-fi ever had an impact on anything). And, indeed, it’s still pretty impactful given how many things he gets right.
The protagonist, Alexei-Aub Kehoe Salvia Sun-Moon-Lake Stewart, Sa. D., is forty and set in his ways. He is the General President of Local 802 of the International Brotherhood of Sanitation Engineers.
Blish was eerily prescient to 2020 in one aspect of the story
Adjusting his mask–no matter how new a mask was, it seemed to let in more free radicals from the ambient air every day–he put the thought aside and prepared to enjoy his stroll and his lunch.
But some things are more grim. The roads around Times Square, Wall Street and Rockefeller Center are all canals. (more…)
Posted in Andrea L. Bell, Bible, Black Lives Matter, Coronavirus, donald tRUMP, Dreams, Dystopia, Hingston & Olsen, Huh?, Humiliation, Joe Satriani, Kim Jong-un, Nuclear Power Trio, Oneiromancy, Politicians, Projections Box, Quarantine, Rebecca Romney, Sci-fi, Science, Sexism, The Future, The Good Ones, Vladimir Putin, Work on October 2, 2020| Leave a Comment »
SOUNDTRACK: NUCLEAR POWER TRIO-“A Clear and Present Rager” (2020).
Today was one of the best days America has seen in four years.
Because here’s an EP to rock your politics off.*
Nuclear Power Trio is a band made up of Vladimir Putin on bass, Kim Jong-un on drums and Donald Trump on guitar. And they totally rock. This first song from their new album is an absolutely rager, as the title says. It’s a three and a half minute instrumental that starts off with a monster riff and some really hightech fretwork from Putin on the bass. When the main “verse” comes in, Trump shows his amazing dexterity on the eight string guitar. He plays surprisingly tasteful licks in between the shredding. This is some pretty classic rocking instrumental stuff ala Joe Satriani, but with the whole band totally keyed in.
A big surprise comes a minute and 45 seconds in when an unnamed fourth member (in the video he appears as a secret service agent) plays an gentle acoustic guitar break, allowing Trump to do some gentle volume-controlled notes. This quiet section happens twice and after the second one, Putin just goes mental on the bass while Kim Jong-Un shows what impressive double bass capabilities he has.
The video for this song is rather disturbing.
But I gotta say, I’d much rather have these three nutcases in a kick ass band than in charge of any country.
[READ: September 24, 2020] The Space Merchants [an excerpt]
During the COVID Quarantine, venerable publisher Hingston & Olsen created, under the editorship of Rebecca Romney, a gorgeous box of 12 stories. It has a die-cut opening to allow the top book’s central image to show through (each book’s center is different). You can get a copy here. This is a collection of science fiction stories written from 1836 to 1998. Each story imagines the future–some further into the future than others. As it says on the back of the box
Their future. Our present. From social reforms to climate change, video chat to the new face of fascism, Projections is a collection of 12 sci-fi stories that anticipated life in the present day.
About this story, which was translated by Andrea L. Bell, Romney writes
the wonders of robot-controlled automation allow people to live in ease within the perfect mechanism of a programmed city–but in the end lead to ineffable discord within the mind of the protagonist.
This story was a little hard for me to wrap my head around. The story follows P. as he makes his way through his daily life in Arconia.
P. is an evaluator. But P. was distracted. Not only did he not mind having evaded his work, he felt euphoric about it. This was not normal. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 