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Archive for the ‘Record Labels’ Category

Lydia Davis–Five Stories from Flaubert (Harper’s, November 2010)

Posted in Death, Fears, Flash Fiction, Funny (strange), Gustav Flaubert, Harper's, Lydia Davis, Prefab Sprout, Record Labels on December 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PREFAB SPROUT-Let’s Change the World with Music (2009).

This album was unreleased back in 1992 (it was supposed to be the follow-up to the wonderful Jordan: The Comeback).  Record label confusion left it shelved for many years.  It’s been released now because lead Sprout Paddy McAloon has been having health issues and won’t be releasing any new Sprout music anytime soon.  So he has released this album in what is essentially demo form.

Unlike many demos, though, this one is pretty fully realized.  It’s full of keyboards (where there might be strings for instance) and there are no backing vocals (or any other musicians), and yet for all of that, it doesn’t sound like a scratched out demo or a home-recorded cassette (and Paddy sings his heart out).  There are certainly moments (most evident in the drums at the beginning and end of songs) that sound kind of sparse, but the bulk of the disc is fully formed and quite well realized.

The opening is pretty odd, with Paddy (who normally has a soaring tenor voice) speaking a deep almost rap over a funky beat.  In fact, as the song continues, with Paddy’s voice returning to “normal,” that funky beat continues.  Nevertheless, but the time the sweeping dreamy chorus kicks in we’re back to less funky, more smooth sounding Sprout that I know and love.

Like Steely Dan, Prefab Sprout is not really meant to be enjoyed by the young.  It’s borderline treacly, it’s very sweet and earnest, an my high school self would have scoffed at my enjoying them at all.  And yet for all of that, the songwriting is really magical.  There is religious imagery all over the disc, but it’s there to convey the magical power of music.  And it’s entirely authentic.

And when you combine that with Paddy’s voice its adult contemporary music that is still interesting (certainly too interesting to be played on pop radio).  I think the real key to the success of the disc is the unpretentious, unforced and completely unironic joy that Paddy gets from music.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.

[READ: November 14, 2010] “Five Stories from Flaubert”

I really enjoyed Madame Bovary many many years ago when I read it.  Recently, writer Lydia Davis translated Madame Bovary and her translation is supposed to be exceptional, light years above the translation that I read.  One of these days I plan to read her version.  In the meantime, I’ve got these little short short stories.

I had a hard time deciphering what these little stories were, exactly.  The introduction says that they are “adapted from letters Flaubert wrote to his lover.”  So I guess Flaubert gets a co-writing credit?  There’s a couple more stories online at The Paris Review (but you need to buy the issue to get all ten). (more…)

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Wells Tower–”The Tuber” (Oustide, April 2009)

Posted in Dromedary Records, Essays, Futility, John Cheever, Nature, Outside, The Mommyheads, Travel, Van Halen, Wells Tower on September 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE MOMMYHEADS-“Needmore, PA” (2010).

This is the first single from The Mommyheads’ new Dromedary release Finest Specimens.  The album (which is sort of a greatest hits, but not) comes out next month, but until then you can hear th is new track at a number of places, including the blog largehearted boy (which has all kinds of cool free listens on it).

This is a 7 minute (live) track.  It opens with some cool keyboards.  They feature what I’ve come to think of as Mommyheads style, in which the bass and guitars (or in this case keyboards) play different things that seem unrelated but which work together.  A great chorus pulls it all together.

This live song has about 3 minutes of instrumental jamminess at the end.  It doesn’t really help the memorableness of the song (as you’ve long forgotten the catchy “That’s right” hook by the end of it), but man they sound great jamming together like that: a tight, psychedelic freakout that just builds in coolness.  It’s almost like two songs in one.

[READ: September 11, 2010] “The Tuber”

This essay is about Wells Tower riding the rivers of Southern Florida in a tube.  It’s also about John Cheever’s “The Swimmer.”

One of the things that I like about Wells Tower is that even in his non-fiction, he ties things together with literary substance.  And so, he sets up this adventure as a twisted take on Cheever’s Neddy Merrill swimming the 8 miles of swimming pools in suburban New York: Tower wants to try to tube the rivers of Florida all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. (more…)

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Wells Tower–”The Thing with Feathers” (Outside, March 2006)

Posted in Dromedary Records, Essays, Gene Sparling, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Nature, NPR/PRI/PBS, Outside, The Mommyheads, Wells Tower on September 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE MOMMYHEADS-“Day Job” (2010).

This is the final bonus track on Dromedary‘s recently reissued Mommyheads album Flying Suit.

This is probably the most conventional Mommyheads song that I know of.  It reminds me a lot of the music from Late Night with David Letterman.  It swings, it’s jaunty, it’s kind of funny and it has some almost zany guitar work on it.

It is probably the ideal “bonus track” for a band that usually writes quirky, off -kilter songs as it doesn’t sound like it should be on the album, but it is still in the spirit of the rest of the songs.  The jazziness if reminiscent of their other work, but there’s something oddly rocking about this track.  It’s a real treat.

Check the songs out (and buy them) here.

[READ: September 10, 2010] “The Thing with Feathers”

Wells Tower week continues with this article about the thought to be extinct Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.  He mentions humorously in the article that NPR went crazy about the woodpecker when one was seen in Arkansas, and I remember that very well.  There were several pieces about the woodpecker and I was really excited about it.

Hairy Woodpecker

I’m not a serious birdwatcher, but ever since I saw my first hairy woodpecker at my apartment in Boston, I’ve been a huge fan of having birds around. The hairy woodpecker is tiny (and very cute).  Since we moved to a wooded area of New Jersey, I’ve been lucky enough to see a red-bellied woodpecker and, I believe, the even more elusive pileated woodpecker.  We’ve even had flickers in our yard.

So this article sees Wells Tower heading down to Arkansas to talk to the man who claims to have seen the first Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Gene Sparling.  The man who caused all the fuss to begin with back in 2005.

And this is a great piece of non-fiction.  Tower brings his excellent storytelling skills and describes a trip into the Arkansas woods looking for this possibly extinct bird. (more…)

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Wells Tower–”Cannery Woe” (Outside, November 2005)

Posted in Dromedary Records, Essays, Nature, New Yorker, Outside, The Mommyheads, Travel, Wells Tower, Yuck! on September 17, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MOMMYHEADS-“Over” (2010).

Dromedary has recently reissued The Mommyheads’ Flying Suit CD.  And there are three bonus tracks available on it now.

I mentioned Flying Suit a little while ago.  What I really liked about that disc was that it was all over the place and yet remained comfortably within its genre of jangle pop-rock.

This first of three new tracks is just under 2 minutes long.  It has a watery guitar and a propulsive bass, and yet it is still a sort of delicate song.  The vocals, as with the rest of the disc, are soft, with nice harmonies.  It’s hard to get overly excited about the song (as it’s not like a sonic blast of 2 minutes), but it’s nice to have even more Mommyheads.

Bonus track number 2 tomorrow.  Check the songs out (and buy them) here.

[READ: September 9, 2010] “Cannery Woe”

Since I recently read the Wells Tower story in the New Yorker, I remembered that I was going to read his other travel stories from Outside.  I started with this one because it is shortest (1 page).

Tower has a wonderful grasp of storytelling. So even a fairly simple story like this (where really nothing terrible happens) is made quite exciting. And the twist, such as it was, is totally unexpected. (more…)

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Wells Tower–“Best Towns 2008: New Orleans, LA”(Outside, August 2008); “Extract a Tick from Your Junk” (Outside, July 2007) and “7 Questions with Wells Tower” (Outside, March 2010)

Posted in Adventure, David Foster Wallace, Dromedary Records, Essays, Outside, The Mommyheads, Travel, Wells Tower, Yuck! on September 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE MOMMYHEADS-“Box” (2010).

After the two minute bonus track of “Over” comes the lengthy (very lengthy for The Mommyheads) “Box”.

I’m not sure what the song is about, but it’s got some great licks within it.  It opens with a twisted guitar opening, one that never sems to settle.  In fact, the entire first verse seems like the song doesn’t quite know where it’s going (which is deliberate, of course).

Because by the end of the second verse we get a very lengthy instrumental break that is ferocious in its coolness.  It begins softly and then morphs into a psychedelic workout: harmonized guitar notes, funky drumming, and yet all within a mellow styling.  It’s very clever.

Its a strange song and it may be my favorite Mommyheads song of all.  It’s an excellent bonus track.  Check the songs out (and buy them) here.

[READ: September 9, 2008] “New Orleans, LA”

This is probably the most straightforward “reporting” piece that I’ve read by Tower.  As such, it doesn’t have a lot of flair to it.

It’s an interesting look at the rebuilding of New Orleans, into what appears to be a greener, stronger and better city than ever before.  It almost seems like you need a terrible catastrophe and the goodwill of citizens to make a place even better than it was before.

He mentions a few individuals who were (and maybe still are) doing extra work to rebuild the city, and they are quite inspirational.

It’s available here.

Because it was so brief, I’m pairing it with another brief but much more entertaining article: “Extract a Tick from Your Junk” from the “How to Do Everything (Well Almost)” piece from the July 2007 issue.  (more…)

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Wells Tower–“The Landlord”(New Yorker, September 13, 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Art, Consumerism, Dromedary Records, Footstone, Friends Romans Countrymen, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, New Yorker, Outside, Short Story, Wells Tower on September 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: STUYVESANT-Jihad Me at Hello (2010).

Stuyvesant (one of the hardest band names to spell) is an amalgam of the defunct New Jersey bands Footstone and Friends, Romans, Countrymen.  And so, as you might expect if you know these other bands, they play noisy rock with a healthy dose of pop.

The opener, “Bi-Polar Bears” is a great example of their punky pop (complete with an unexpected horn section).  The second track, “Tape Hiss” sounds like Footstone (Ralphie’s voice is very distinct here) although the “do-do-do” harmonies are something new to the sound.

There’s more surprise from a major break in “Ode to Bish” which features a “waka jawacka” guitar and a horn solo.  “Liars Poker” also features some cool bass vocal harmonies (something of a rare treat in rock music).

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the slow opening of “Broken Red Wing.”  I was pleasantly surprised that after the slow opening, it did not jump quickly into a song that sounded like the rest on the disc.  Guitars kick in but they are not the same crunchy style.  The track shows an unexpected diversity on the disc.

While I have enjoyed both the Footstone and FRC releases, I think this conflation of the two makes for the best overall package.  It’s a great EP, and I’m looking forward to the full length.  This EP is available for free.  That’s right, for free.  So even if you hate it, you can still download it for free.  In any format, and then you can burn it to a CD, in the format that music is meant to be enjoyed.

[READ: September 8, 2010] “The Landlord”

Wells Tower is another 20 Under 40.  I’ve enjoyed the few short stories(although I haven’t read his collection yet) and the non-fiction he’s written for Outside magazine.

This story feels like an excerpt from a longer piece because there are a lot of different characters who seem like there’s more to them.

The main character is the landlord, Mr Pruitt.  He owns a lot of properties, but in the current market he has had to sell a number of them.  And, of course, his tenants are paying him less and less frequently.  As the story opens we meet one of those tenants, Armando Colón, who is three months overdue.  Armando has a solution to his problem which he presents to Mr Pruitt.  When Armando leaves, Mr Pruitt’s worker, Todd Toole mocks him for letting people fuck him over. (more…)

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Fredy Perlman–[Week 3] Letters of Insurgents (1976)

Posted in Fredy Perlman, Insurgent Summer, Politicians, Record Labels on June 25, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: CHUMBAWAMBA-Anarchy (1994).

Long before Chumbawamba were Tubthumping up the charts, they were a bunch of squatting anarchists.  In fact their history as a collective is fascinating  in and of itself (they had even started a record label called Agit-Prop).

This album was their sixth, and the cover was not the only controversial thing about it.  It opens with the supremely catchy “Give the Anarchist a Cigarette” which features the delightfully sing a long: “Nothing ever burns down by itself/ Ever fire needs a little bit of help.”

From this disc on (their previous albums were a mish mash of samples and dance beats) they set about writing catchy electronic rock songs.  Simple beats that you could dance to, but with subversive lyrics up the wazoo.  They tackled Homophobia: “homophobia the worst disease you can’t love who you want to love in times like these.”  It’s an a capella track with an arr. trad. melody and (like “Tubthumping”) it was also set in a pub:  “In the pubs and clubs and burger bars, breeding pens for pigs Alcohol, testosterone, and ignorance and fists.”

I’ve enjoyed this disc for as long as I’ve had it.  It’s a catchy mix of different styles with a surprisingly strong sounding multi-voiced chorus.  (For all of Chumbawamba’s ups and downs, their harmonies have always been spot on).

The disc also features a number of 30 second snippets of TV (one is called “D’oh”) and commercials.  Songs also reference The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, as well as local politics and general awareness: “open your eyes, time to wake up, enough is enough is enough is enough” (from the song “Enough is Enough,” which is decidedly not a cover of the disco hit).

Because I have the sense of humor of a five-year old, I have always loved the lyrics of the wholly danceable “Mouthful of Shit” “Can’t hear you ’cause your mouth’s full of shit, do something about it. ” Also like “Tubthumping,” it features a solo female vocal coming out of the din, delicately singing, “You think you’re Gods gift, you’re a liar.  I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”  It’s fun to sing along to, just be mindful of where you are when yo do it!

[READ: Week of June 25, 2010] Letters of Insurgents [Third Letters]

The hardest thing about writing up posts about this book is trying to limit my quotes!  There are so many good ones, and ones that so encapsulate what I want to say that it just seems easier to use his words.  So, Insurgent Summer readers, I apologize for all of the blocks.  Fredy writes too well not  to share it.

And so begins the third letters: (more…)

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Padgett Powell–“Afraid to be Men” (Harper’s, June 2010)

Posted in Carla Bozulich, Constellation Records, Evangelista, Fears, Funny (strange), Harper's, Padgett Powell, Short Story on May 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: EVANGELISTA-Prince of Truth [CST061] (2009).

This is the second disc by Evangelista, the band fronted by Carla Bozulich. This disc continues in the vein or the previous disc, which is a little disappointing.

The disc is chock full of a lot of noise: stringed instruments, textures, layers, but they all add up to very little.  Bozulich’s voice is in another location entirely.  On most of the songs, there’s no real connection.

Two songs in the middle, “You Are a Jaguar,” and “Iris Didn’t Spell” are more reasonable attempts where Bozulich’s wild vocals are wedded to a more standard musical composition.  And those tracks work pretty well.  But when there’s so much directionless stuff floating around on the disc, it’s hard to want to listen to it.

[READ: May 25, 2010] “Afraid to be Men”

This is a conversation between two men.  They are given no context and are speaking abstractly.  These two things combines make for a less than satisfying read.

Admittedly, this piece is excerpted from a longer piece called “Manifesto.”  I’m not planning to read the longer piece, so I’ll never find out of context is given. (more…)

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Glen E. Friedman–Keep Your Eyes Open Fugazi (2007)

Posted in Art, Books about music, Corporate skewering, Dischord Records, Essays, Free Speech, Fugazi, Glen E. Friedman, Greed, Ian F. Svenonius, Nation of Ulysses, Photo Essays, Punks on April 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FUGAZI-Repeater + 3 Songs (1990).

This was Fugazi’s debut album and my first exposure to them.  They’d put out some singles before this but I missed them.  Listening to it now, it sounds great, but not revolutionary.  And yet, I remember back then, this was a pretty mind-blowing album.  It’s full of heavy chunky guitars and yet it is underscored by a punk vibe (that comes from the source: Minor Threat).

And yet, despite that pedigree, the album is also quite diverse.  There’s some pleasantly melodic sequences, including the very nice instrumental “Brendan #1.”  There’s some wildly unpreditcable chord sequences and sounds, like the opening fof “Greed.”

Of course before you forget that this is a punk band at heart you get the hardcore chanting of “Sieve-Fisted Find” which sounds like every chanted hardcore record from the 80s (a nice touch).

And yet there’s also great diversity throughout, chugging guitars in “Two Beats Off.”  “The slow, almost jazzy twists and turns of, “Shut the Door.”  And I haven’t even mentioned the two lead-off tracks: “Turnover” and “Repeater” one of the best statements of purpose to open a disc in the 90s.

I have enjoyed other Fugazi releases, but for me this is the one to get.

[READ: April 9, 2010] Keep Your Eyes Open

My brother-in-law Ben got me this book for Christmas a couple of years ago.  It’s primarily a photo collection.  Well, it IS a photo collection, but there’s also an introductory essay that I hadn’t read until the other day.

Glen Friedman has evidently been Fugazi’s official photographer for years (and this is, I gather, his second book of photos).  The book is a good mix of live and “posed” photos.  Obviously, the live ones are more dynamic (and you can really see that way the band is totally immersed in their show).  There’s got to be at least a dozen shots of someone in the band upside down, on his back or in some way not normally upright. (more…)

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Bill Cotter–Fever Chart (2009)

Posted in Bill Cotter, Constellation Records, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Fears, Funny (strange), Ghosts, Holidays, LGBTQ, McSweeney's, Neurotics, Punks, Sex, Suicide, The Dead Milkmen, Threats, Unreliable narrator, Violence, Yuck! on April 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: VIC CHESNUTT-At the Cut [CST060] (2009).

Vic Chesnutt died in December.  I have limited exposure to him, although I really enjoyed his previous Constellation release North Star Deserter.

This release (his second to last) shows him playing with much the same line up as North Star.  And it is just as harrowing and passionate as the other.

It opens with the fantastic “Coward” in which, stating how courageous it can be to be a coward her proudly sings “I am a Coward!”.  This track is one of the rocking ones on the disc, which is split pretty evenly between cacophonous rockers and slow moody acoustic pieces.  Another great rocker is “Chinaberry Tree.”  The lyrics are simple and the chorus is just the words Chinaberry Tree, but it is fantastic.

My preferences run to faster music, so I enjoy his noisier tracks to the simpler, acoustic ones.  And yet, lyrically, his songs are so moving that I easily get sucked into the narratives.  The most notable song on the disc is “Flirted with You All My Life” which is about death, specifically about his past suicide attempts.  It’s really moving.  And even the seemingly simple “Granny” is a well-written mood piece.

Chesnutt had all kind of physical problems (when he was 18 he was in a car accident and had been mostly paralyzed) and he had been in pain most of life.  It’s a shame he felt compelled to end his life, but we still have his music to enjoy.

[READ: March 27, 2010] Fever Chart

About half way through this first-person book, the narrator has a mental breakdown and tries to bite his hand off.  That should tell you right off the bat whether or not you want to read the book.  (Add to that that the narrator also has terrible bowel problems).

I had received an excerpt from McSweeney’s over the summer, and of all three books in the sampler, I enjoyed this one the most.  Little did I know how utterly surreal the story would get once that excerpt was over!

The cover of the book shows a man walking down the street with blood dripping from his hand.  This seemed like an odd choice to me.  However, for the bulk for the story, the narrator seems to be walking down streets with blood dripping from his hand (the one he eventually tries to bite off) so it perfectly encapsulates the tone of the book.

The story opens in the middle of a series of events from the narrator’s past (the first few sections are written in a wonderfully disjointed way that keeps the reader off balance).  Jerome Coe is currently living in an Apartment in Boston.  It has no heat.  His toilet is frozen solid and he is sleeping between his mattress and box spring to keep warm.  After ages of complaints to his landlord, one day the heat kicks on.  Full blast.  And Jerome cannot turn it off.  Soon, wallpaper is peeling of the walls and steam is flowing from his windows.  He is naked in his apartment and is preparing to run outside into the freezing weather just to escape the heat.

While he is standing outside, half-naked, a car pulls up and the driver, a woman named Tommy, asks him to jump in. (more…)

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