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Archive for the ‘Record Labels’ Category

Jasper Gibson–A Bright Moon for Fools (2013)

Posted in Big Books, Canadian Music, Drinking, Funny (ha ha), Jasper Gibson, Knives, Luke Doucet, Mark Sasso, Marriage (Happy), Martin Tielli, Michael Palin, Murder, NQ Arbuckle, Sex, Six Shooter Records, Threats, Unlikable main character, Violence, Yuck! on November 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »

moonfoolsSOUNDTRACK: MARTIN TIELLI-Ottawa Bluesfest Ottawa, ON (July 5, 2008).

bluesfestThis brief set at the Ottawa Bluesfest was for a Six Shooter Records showcase. As such it is short (about 30 minutes).  By the end there are tons of guests playing with him, which is fun.

He opens with three solo acoustic songs: “I’ll Never Tear You Apart” which sounds great and “Something in Those Woods” which would appear on his third album The Ghost of Danny Gross the following year. When the song ends, he says he is still  “working on it.” The third song “The Underbrush” will also appear on Danny.

Then the band comes in: Ford Pier, Greg Smith and Doots (Steven Pitkin) on drums.   Someone in the band says that Martin looks great, the treatments really paid off to which Martin replies “What?” incredulously.

The rocking “My Sweet Relief” segues nicely into the rocking “That’s What You Get for Having Fun.”  Interestingly, Martin seems to forget the words, so they play an entirely instrumental verse (complete with a solo) before resuming the song.

The final song is a great version of “Shaved Head,” with a full cast of Six Shooter Records players in the guest list: Luke Doucet, Paul LaPlante, Christine Fellows, Justin Rutledge, NQ Arbuckle, Casey Laforet and  Mark Sasso as well as a few others whose names I missed.

It’s a great fun show and a great quality recording.

[READ: July 1, 2015] A Bright Moon for Fools

I found this book at work and was intrigued by it.  Not by its title or cover, which is dreadful, but because on the edge of the pages was printed Up on two legs, man!  I love a book that plays with convention so I decided to check it out.  Then on the front is a blurb from Michael Palin(!) which says “Very funny, very unpleasant and very moving.”  And this is a very apt blurb for this book.  It is quite funny, it is very unpleasant and it is also rather moving.

The story is about a man named Harry Christmas.  Christmas is a scoundrel.  He is mid-fifties but appears much older–fat, drunk and be-mustached.  He fancies that he looks fantastic, but no one is fooled.

Christmas suffers no fools. He expounds vociferously about any slight (especially slights against common courtesy–for although he is belligerent, he does believe in common courtesy).  He hates all of the vulgar inanities of modern life, which he calls, “The Rot.”  He hates people who use air quotes, he hates people who listen to walkmen (or whatever other technological marvel is out there), he hates people who want to sit and talk to him while he is eating, and worst yet he hates those who assume that because he is British, he loves football.  None of these hatreds seems that unreasonable to me, but since Harry is a big drunken man, his belligerence moves past justifiable and into the realm of scary.

And yet, he is a funny and enjoyable protagonist to be sure.  Well, except that he has stolen the life savings from his previous girlfriend and has fled London for Venezuela. (more…)

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Dave Bidini–The Best Game You Can Name (2005)

Posted in Africa, Alun Piggins, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Culture Shock, Dave Bidini, Dave Bidini music, Drinking, History, Hockey, Hockey Night in Canada, Rheostatics, Russia, Sonic Unyon, Teeth, The Wombats, Toronto Maple Leafs, Travel, Violence, Yuck! on November 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »

 ganeSOUNDTRACK: DAVE BIDINI-The President of Mount Allison’s House, Sackville (July 28, 2007).

allisonUntil I looked it up, I didn’t know what Mount Allison was, nor why he would be playing at the President’s house.  I’m still not sure why he was playing there, but as part of his solo mini tour, Dave graced the beautiful house.

For this show he read for 17 minutes and played 5 songs.  He plays “My First Rock Show” as the only Rheos song.  And then plays the same four “new” songs as in yesterday’s post: “Song Ain’t Good,” “The List” “The Land is Wild” and “The Ballad of Zeke Roberts.”

He explains the Zeke Roberts song a bit more.   He spent a few days in Ghana and went to a Liberian refugee camp (all documented in the book Around the World in 57 1/2 Gigs) which is how he learned about Zeke Roberts.

He talks about staying locally in the Marshland Inn and the scary doll in his room (and also how he hopes to have his picture among the famous people who have stayed there).

For the reading portion he talks about the guys he played with in China: Alun Piggins, drummer Jay Santiago and guitarist Dwayne Gale.  He talks about the scene where they get massages (very funny).  There’s another excerpt in which they meet some people on the street where a baby is playing with a lighter.  The band starts taking pictures and then—eventually one of the adults puts an unlit cigarette in the baby’s mouth, and much hilarity ensues.

Overall though, this reading gets pretty dark as he gets into fight with Jay about Rush, and he feels bad that the Rheos had broken up especially when he sees the up and coming band The Wombats loving their set.

As for the music in this set, it is too loud and peaks a lot in the recording.  There also seems to be a hornet pestering him.  It’s probably the least interesting of the three shows.

[READ: November 7, 2015] The Best Game You Can Name.

This book is about hockey.  Specifically it is about Bidini’s rec team the Morningstars and their quest for another championship (and how after winning two years in a row, they were the main target for all the other teams).  Much like how his book On a Cold Road included quotes and stories from musicians, this book includes quotes and stories from former NHL players (I didn’t really recognize any of their names, but then I wasn’t a hockey fan in the 70s and 80s).

So each chapter talks a bit about his team and then has several stories about a specific topic from the hockey guys.

He begins by talking about his athletic renaissance in his 40s (after having given up on professional hockey).  I enjoyed the stories from the hockey players who loved playing so much as kids that they would spend hours and hours and hours on the ice.  I also liked them saying that you could still become a pro if you only started playing at 15 unlike today when kids are starting at age 5. (more…)

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Juan Diaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido–Blacksad: A Silent Hell (2010) [translated 2012]

Posted in Animals, Bart Beatty, Blawan, Girl Band, Graphic Novel, Guns, Juan Díaz Canales, Juanjo Guarnido, Katie LaBarbera, Mystery, Noir, Record Labels, Sex, Translation, Violence on March 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »

blacksad4SOUNDTRACK: GIRL BAND-“Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?” (2014).

girl band I first heard about Girl Band from the NPR Austin 100 list.  This song blew me away.  It is a noisy and unrelenting 8 minutes.  It builds and builds into a chaotic tumult.  And, amazingly, it is a cover of a dance song.

Girl Band is from Dublin and they make some of the noisiest rock I’ve heard in a long time.  Not heavy rumbling death metal noise, but ear-piercing feedback and squalls and sqwaks of sound that are heard to imagine originating with a guitar or bass.

It open with controlled chaos, and clearly some kind of pedal manipulation from the sounds generated by… a guitar?

The lyrics are minimal–a simple repeat of “Why they hide they bodies under my garage?”  These lyrics are repeated, more frenetically with the “music” just squeals of feedback and noise.  The song doesn’t seem to change much, but there are subtle (if that’s the right word) changes in noise and intensity for four minutes until the song sorta stops and then resumes with even more intensity.  It drops out again, but by 6 minutes the song has built to epic intensity, with interesting sounds in between “chants.”

There is pretty much nothing to this song and yet it is amazingly intense.  And not for the faint of heart.

This song is from an earlier compilation release but is getting reissued on their soon to be released EP.  (You can get a lot of their early stuff from their bandcamp site).

The video is creepy as anything too:

You can also hear the original by Blawan, which is similar without the building intensity, I tend to think that Girl Band has done this song a real service.

[READ: December 20, 2014] Blacksad: A Silent Hell

I had gotten the latest Blacksad book at work, so I looked to see if I could find the earlier editions. I couldn’t find the first book right away so I decided to dive in with this book.  It is the second collection, but is apparently the fourth book.  The first collection, simply titled Blacksad collects the first three books together.  The books were originally written in French and were translated by Katie LaBarbera.

I don’t know how much if any introduction there is in that first book, so there’s no context for why these animals are people or people are animals.  And I rather hope there isn’t one.  It’s just a great world where everyone looks human except that their heads are a (very realistic) animal shape.  In fact speaking of realistic, the artwork by Guarnido is amazing–perfectly noir with incredible realism and gorgeous colors (all done with watercolors, I believe).

This book opens with Blacksad, a private investigator, and Weekly, a reporter, at a strip club.  (It is disconcerting that the stripper is a leopard woman and that she is really hot (thankfully, it’s only shown from the back because that would get weird).  Weekly is super psyched but Blacksad has other things on his mind.  They are supposed to be meeting Junior Harper but he ain’t showing.

The pull back shows that we are in New Orleans. (more…)

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Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez–Locke & Key: Volume Six : Alpha & Omega (2014)

Posted in Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Christmas Album, Death, Demons, Fears, Gabriel Rodriguez, Ghosts, Graphic Novel, Happy Flowers, Joe Hill, Record Labels, Revenge, Supernatural, Violence, Yuck! on January 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »

locke6 SOUNDTRACK: HAPPY FLOWERS-“All I Got Were Clothes Christmas” (1986).

godsAfter all of this mostly respectful Christmas music, I had to throw in one crazy stupid ugly horribly song.  But that’s mostly because I forgot it existed until I stumbled on it the other day.  The Happy Flowers were a terrible band (seriously).  They were the kind of band that seemed to blossom in the late 1980s which don’t seem to exist anymore (for better or worse).  They were beyond noise, this was just a crazy noisy pile of sound with screamed lyrics that have nothing to do with the music.

I loved them.  But not really, because they were terrible.  But it was fun to know that people not only made music like this but that it could find a record label (and presumably an audience).  I used to enjoy playing their songs on my radio show.

The Happy Flowers were two guys from Charlottesville, VA.  They were in another band (the Landlords) so presumably they could play their instruments, although I don’t know that band at all.  Their stage names were Mr. Horribly Charred Infant, (drums, vocals) and Mr. Anus, (guitar, vocals), so you have a sense of what we’re dealing with here.  And yet you really can’t be prepared for it.

This song is basically just feedback and two adult men screaming about how they wanted to get toys for Christmas but all they got was clothes.  For four minutes.  And it made it onto the above compilation, God’s Favorite Dog, with Big Black and the Butthole Surfers.

If your Christmas didn’t live up to your expectations, perhaps you need to hear this.  Or perhaps not.

[READ: December 29, 2014] Locke & Key 6

I knew I couldn’t hold out until the new year to finish this series.  I was compelled to keep going.  There was nothing I could do to hold back, as if some kind of spirit kept pulling me towards the books.

And the ending did not disappoint.  Well, it did disappoint a little in that so many people ended up dead.  I couldn’t believe how many people who I grew to care about were killed in various ways.

There’s really no time for flashbacks in this book, although we do get occasional look-backs.  We see the Locke kids make up with the friends that they have alienated. We also see that the kids’ mom has been sober for 30 days (this whole series takes place over a much longer time than it seems).

We also see Rufus come to say goodbye to the Locke family. While he is waiting for Bode to come up from the water, Rufus sees Bode’s ghost who tells him that the person in Bode’s body is not him but is actually Scout.  Rufus immediately attacks Bode when he arrives.  This send Rufus to the same institution that Erin Voss is in.  While he’s in there we see him already making plans to escape.  And it turns out that Erin Voss is able to communicate with him (sort of) and she is able to help in her own way. (more…)

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The Greatest Albums You’ll Never Hear: Unreleased Records by the World’s Greatest Musicians (2014)

Posted in Beastie Boys, Beck, Books about music, Bruce Springsteen, Buffalo Springfield, Canadian Music, Danger Mouse, David Bowie, Deftones, Drinking, Drugs, Foo Fighters, Frank Zappa, Green Day, History, Jeff Beck, Jeff Buckley, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Record Labels, Sex Pistols, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Who, U2, Van Halen, Weezer, Wicked Lester on November 25, 2014| 1 Comment »

greatestSOUNDTRACK: PINK FLOYD-“The Hard Way” and “Wine Glasses” (1974).

glassThis book informed me about these two unreleased Pink Floyd songs (there’s a Wikipedia site that lists some fifty more !).  While the were unreleased in 1974 (from the abandoned Household Objects album), they were eventually released in 2011 on expanded versions of albums.

“The Hard Way” features some “percussion” that sounds like someone taking steps.  There’s a bass riff which I gather is from rubber bands (but very well tuned).  There’s clocks ticking and chiming and tape being unspooled.  It’s a neat idea and while it is absurd to think you could make a whole album with this kind of stuff (in 1974), it’s a surprisingly good sounding track.

“Wine Glasses” was apparently made with wine glasses.  It is all of 2 minutes long.  It was designed to be a full song but was eventually used in the introduction to “Shine on You Crazy Diamond.”  I never really considered that there were wine glasses making the sounds (and clearly there are synths added on top), but yeah, so that ‘s kinda neat.

[READ: November 25, 2014] The Greatest Albums You’ll Never Hear

I found this book at work and knew I had to read it.  I was actually surprised at how long it took me to read (there’s a lot of entries).

The title and subtitle pretty much say everything you need to know about this book (and if you need to read it or not).  This book collects a series of writers who give a brief history of some of the more famous (and some not so famous) albums that were never released.  It explains (as best they can) why the albums weren’t released and even gives a percentage chance of likelihood of the album ever seeing the light of day (interestingly, most seem to be a 3/10–they may have been able to use a 5 point scale).

I knew some of the records they talked about (The Beach Boys’ Smile, Neil Young’s Chrome Dreams), but was ignorant of quite a lot of them. And while big fans of the artists may know all of the details about their favorite lost album already (these are sketches, not exhaustive research), there will certainly be some new information.  For instance, I’m a huge Pink Floyd fan but had no idea about the two shelved works mentioned here.

I liked the way the book was done chronologically and grouped by decade.  It was also interesting to see how the “reasons” for the non-release morphed over the decades from “the record label didn’t like it” to “it was leaked online.”

The one major gripe I have with the book is that it is chock full of “imagined” album covers.  This in itself is okay, but it is not made explicitly clear that they are all imagined (credits are given at the bottom of each image, but it took me a few entries to realize these were just people’s ideas of what the covers could look like).  And most of them are gawdawful.  Just really lame and dull (as if they had 20 minutes to come up with an idea).  They mar an otherwise cool collection,especially since some of the unreleased records actually do have proposed covers (even if they were never released).  I see that there is in fact a paragraph about the covers in the front pages of the book, but it is almost hidden away.

In addition to the albums I’ve listed below, I learned some fascinating things.  That Bruce Springsteen has hundreds of songs that he wrote but never released for various reasons.  That Pink Floyd did try to make an album out of household objects (with no instruments).  That the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks was almost simultaneously released illicitly as Spunk.  And that Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album was recently remastered.

The end of the book includes two small sections: other favorites that were never released.  Not sure why they earned only a small column instead of a full entry, but that’s okay.  The second was albums that we eventually did see, like My Bloody Valentine’s MBV and Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy.

So if you ever wondered what happened to that long lost album, this may be the book for you.

A sampling of the unreleased records include:

  • The Beach Boys-Smile
  • Buffalo Springfield-Stampede
  • The Kinks-Four Respected Gentlemen
  • The Beatles-Get Back
  • Jeff Beck-The Motown Album
  • Jimi Hendrix-Black Gold
  • The Who-Lifehouse
  • Wicked Lester
  • Rolling Stones-American Tour ’72
  • CSN&Y-Human Highway
  • Pink Floyd-Household Objects (1974), Spare Brick 1982
  • Dusty Springfield-Longing
  • David Bowie-The Gouster (1975), Toy (2001)
  • Sex Pistols-Spunk
  • Neil Young -Homegrown (1975), Chrome Dreams (1976)
  • Frank Zappa-Läther
  • Beastie Boys-Country Mike’s Greatest Hits
  • Weezer-Songs from the Black Hole
  • Jeff Buckley-My Sweeetheart the Drunk
  • Van Halen-IV
  • Foo Fighters-The Million Dollar Demos
  • Green Day-Cigarettes and Valentines (the author doesn’t believe it was actually stolen)
  • Tapeworm (Trent Reznor and Maynard James Keenan among others)
  • Deftones-Eros
  • U2-Songs of Ascent
  • Beck-The Song Reader

 

 

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David Foster Wallace–[Week 8] The Pale King (2011) [Pale Summer §48-§50]

Posted in Big Books, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Demons, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Huh?, Meta, Record Labels, Sex on September 1, 2014| 1 Comment »

backSOUNDTRACK: TOADIES-“Summer of the Strange” (2012).

summerstrageToadies had a hit (which is still played on “Modern Rock” radio today) in 1994 called “Possum Kingdom.”  I really liked the song because the tempo was way off kilter and the lyrics were inscrutable (“Do you wanna die?” “So help me Jesus.”).  And the singer had a screamy kind of voice that sounded like he might be unhinged.  It was a very improbable hit and yet there it was.  And then Toadies went away.

When I heard that they had put out other albums I was surprised, so I looked them up and saw that they got into all kinds of legal grief with their record label during the (abandoned) release of their second album.  And they basically broke up for like ten years. And then they got back together and then re-recorded their delayed album and then put out the album that this song is on.

I’ve only listened to couple of songs from Play.Rock.Music.  I didn’t like the one with the horns (that may have been a remix actually), but overall the albums sounded quite Toadies-like.  And this song (with the very weird–perhaps too intentionally weird) contained some of the craziness of that first single.  It opens with a simple bass and drum set up.  Then there’s some odd ball vocals and some fuzzy smattering of guitars.  Then the guitars roar in and the chorus is strangely catchy, and the lead vocalist sounds like he still might be a bit unhinged.

By the end of the song, the guitar solo is a wild affair and the rest of the band is noisy and distorted and a little sleazy and you kind of leave the song feeling just a bit dirty–a perfect Toadies song.

[READ: September 1, 2014] Pale Summer Week 8 (§48-§50)

Because I was on vacation, I didn’t notice that the Pale Summer group read had stayed on an earlier chapter and were just getting the read rolling again.  So, I’m already ahead of the spoiler line.  But since I have this post written and I’m anal retentive, I’m going to post my final sections on the originally slated date (okay a day late for Labor day).  But as a concession to everyone else, I’m going to save the end pages and my thoughts on the book for next week.

So this week’s post is about the end of the book proper.  And next week will contain the comments from Pietsch at the end of the book as well as the additional materials that were included in the paperback.

A lot of information is handed out in these first two sections.  However, it’s not entirely clear what happened. And as with the unfinished book we’re left wondering if any more of the story would have clarified anything. (more…)

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Joaquim Maria Macahado de Assis–“The Academies of Siam” (Harper’s, March 2014)

Posted in 19th Century, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Death, Gender, Harper's, Hrsta, Jealousy, Joaquim Maria Macahado de Assis, Pink Floyd, Rhett McNeil, Short Story, Violence, War on May 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »

march2014SOUNDTRACK: HRSTA–Stem Stem in Electro [CST036] (2005).

cst036webI really like this album a lot.  It has all of the trappings of post rock (long songs which are rather epic in nature with lots of building and no standard verse chord structure), but it also feels doggedly commercial–super catchy in the way the elements combine and the choruses swell.

“…and we climb” is a simple four chord song that builds over the course of 6 minutes.  It seems like it will be just instrumental, but after almost 3 minutes a gang begins chanting about how “we climb to the light.”  The songs builds in intensity and then fades out to just voices.  “Blood on the Sun” is a guitar-based song with female vocals–echoing and pretty while the guitar plays on.  The song doesn’t vary much, but the combination of the voices and the chord changes is a really good one.  “Une infinite de trous en forme d’homme” is a swirling instrumental with a circular guitar pattern and washes of chords in the background.   “Folkways Orange” starts with strong vibrato guitars and compelling wavery vocals.  There’s some interesting chord changes but mostly the song is just a solid song that stays strong for 5 minutes.

“Swallow’s Tail” is one of my favorite songs on the disc.  It begins with a screechy noise that acts as a rhythm.  Then the great guitar melody follows along.  It’s not complex, but it is intertwining and intriguing.  At around 2 minutes a guitar chord motif begins.  It has a sort or tension in it, like it’s expecting something to come along.  And then the whispering vocals begin. The guitars roar to life for a few bars and then settle down as the vocals count out what is the Swallows Tail.  Then the music rages back in.  This is followed by “Heaven Is Yours,” a series of random noises and spacey sounds, as if resting from the catharsis of track 5.  “Gently Gently” is a short angsty song full of washes of chords.   The final track, “Quelque chose a propos des raquetteurs” opens with more great sounding guitars.  You can feel that it is going to be epic.  The violins come in after a minute to really build the song.  When the vocals come in around 5 minutes, it reminds me of the chords structure and build up at the end of Pink Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother,” which is quite alright with me.

It’s a fabulous example of post-rock.

[READ: May 11, 2014] “The Academies of Siam”

Joaquim Maria Macahado de Assis was alive from 1839-1908, so this is not a current story by any means.  It comes from a new collection called Stories which was translated from the Portuguese by Rhett McNeil.  I don’t know the first thing about the author.

This story is a strange one.  It sets up the hypothetical question asking if you know about the academies of Siam.  It follows this question with “I am well aware that there have never been any academies in Siam, but suppose that there were…”  Huh.  He asks us to imagine that there were four of them and then gives this tale in four parts.

In the first, there is a question posed as to whether souls have a gender–is a man more feminine because he has a feminine soul?  This is asked because the king is considered quite a feminine man.  He doesn’t like war or any kind of fighting, he has honeyed eyes and a silvery voice.  Indeed, Kalaphangko is “practically a lady.”

The academics form two camps on this issue.  Those who say that souls are gendered and those who do not.  And soon enough violence breaks out over the issue.  (more…)

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Rebecca Curtis–“The Toast” (Harper’s, March 2014)

Posted in Books about music, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Funny (strange), Harper's, Parenting, Rebecca Curtis, Sandro Perri, Short Story on May 22, 2014| 3 Comments »

march2014SOUNDTRACK: SANDRO PERRI-Tiny Mirrors [CST047] (2007).

tinyThis album is mellow and jazzy.   At first listen it sounds almost cheesy.  But Perri is just peculiar enough to make this whole experience fun.  As with his amazing Impossible Spaces (which came out after this) Perri pushes the bounds of mellow music with his delicate voice and wah wah’d guitar.

There’s not a ton of diversity on this record, and of you don’t like the opening minutes there’s nothing that will convert you.  But there are some interesting musical moments here.

The guitar lines that wah wah through “Family Tree” are very cool.  “Double Suicide” is the catchiest thing called “Double Suicide” you’ll ever hear.  The guitars are pretty and Perri’s voice is just soothingly beautiful.

Perhaps the most surprising thing on the disc is the cover of “Everybody’s Talking.”  It loses all sense of the original melody.  It really sounds nothing like it.  It’s very strange but beautiful .

I love the flute on “You’re the One.”  Theres something about that flute that really brings out the pretty in Perri.   I also really like the melody and guitar/horn interplay on “Love is Real.”  The final song is an instrumental which really lets you focus on the music.

So while there is definitely the potential for cheese here, Perri manages to ride just above it, making some really pretty songs.

[READ: May 19, 2014] “The Toast”

Curtis is a holistic nutritionist.  She wrote an essay about that in Harper’s a few months ago.  And the main character in this story is a nutritionist.  But the story is also extremely self referential, teasing the reader about believing that a character is the author, so I’m not willing to ascribe any kind of autobiography to it.

This is the first fiction of hers that I’ve read and I have to say I absolutely loved the first half of it.  I enjoyed the end half as well, but I really loved the first half.

The story is a very simple one about a younger sister (Sonya, the narrator) having a difficult relationship with her older sister Leala.  The older sister is successful, overachieving and just about to get married.  Meanwhile Sonya has switched jobs (unsuccessfully), is in debt and is living in an attic loft with a landlord who barges in on her.

As the story opens, the narrator proves to be a snarky character who I found delightfully off putting.  At first I though that perhaps there was some mocking of holistic folks in general (there’s lots of talk of fluoride), but that would not appear to be the case.  However, when a character says this, I’m hooked:

The wedding, my sister said, would not be fancy.  However, there would be a hair-metal band, a five-course local organic vegan dinner, and a life-size fair-trade chocolate baby elephant. I’m afraid that my sister went on explaining details about the wedding and I stopped listening; this is because I caught Lyme disease five years ago and have neurological damage that makes it difficult for me to listen when people talk, especially when that they’re saying isn’t interesting.

It’s a great paragraph–we learn about the older sister and we learn that the younger sister might just use her disease as an excuse to get out of things.  She is also not afraid to say what she thinks, like when she calls her sister’s fiance a “walking pancake.” (more…)

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Daniel Abraham–Balfour and Meriwether in The Vampire of Kabul (2011)

Posted in 19th Century, Adventure, Constellation Records, Daniel Abraham, Demons, Fantasy, Fears, Short Story, Steampunk, Supernatural, Violence on May 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

bm-cover-sm-225x300SOUNDTRACK: ERIC CHENAUX-Dull Lights [CST043] (2006).

dullI’ve talked about other Eric Chenaux discs before, and this one is similar to those–very mellow with Chenaux’s gentle voice running through some melodies.  The instruments include electric guitar, 12 string banjo, lap steel guitar, harmonica, electric banjo, portable sample keyboard and drums.

It’s never always clear to me what he’s signing about because his words are stretched out quite long and I’m often very distracted by the music that is accompanying the songs.

The first song “Skullsplitter” is in no way what you might be expecting from a song with that title.  There are cymbals, but no real drums, there’s a scratchy sound like a violin (although none are listed in the credits so perhaps it is samples) and what sounds like randomly plucked notes on a muted banjo.   The martial drums on track 2, “Worm and Gear” really help to coalesce the elements of this song  so you can really appreciate what Chenaux is doing here.  “I Can See It Now” has a woozy almost drunken feeling.  Chenaux has such a pretty voice that you want to lean in but the music seems so unusual.

Later in the disc, “Memories Are No Treasure” is catchy with a nice vocal melody, showing that Chenaux can write a more conventional song.  “White Dwarf White Sea” has a banjo line that has always reminded me of lines from “God Bless America”–in the middle of the riff, the banjo seems to play “from the mountains to the prairie.”   “Ronnie-May” has a very catchy county melody.  A pretty wild (genuinely wild) guitar solo, breathes crazy life into the record.  “However Wildly We Dream” concludes the record with that same kind of drunken feel (the drums are just insane).

I definitely didn’t enjoy this one as much as his other discs

[READ: April 7, 2014] Balfour and Meriwether in The Vampire of Kabul

This is a short story that I discovered because I enjoyed the (written later but not impacting this story in any way) novella that came out this year.

Abraham has written three stories about these two turn of the 20th century “detectives.”  They are like a supernatural Holmes & Watson (with a tad more violence).  In this story, which, again, is completely independent of the others, Meriwether & Balfour are sitting at home on a December night in 188- bored out of their minds.

Just as Meriwether says he wishes that something would break their malaise a ninja comes crashing through their giant window.  In a trice she has a gun at Balfour’s head. Meriwether is helpless to assist.  But they both recognize who it is almost immediately–Maria Feodorovan, the czarina of Russia and sworn enemy of Meriwether & Balfour.  As the dust clears, we learn what Maria is here for–she is daring to ask for help from our duo.

It appears that the Czar has gone mad.  But not from natural causes–someone or something attacked him.  There was “an ectoplasmic darkness” in the corners of the room and while he has recovered somewhat, it seems that his mind is no longer his own.  And, she explains based on overheard knowledge that the Queen of England is next.  As she says this, the police rush in to say that The Queen has been attacked. (more…)

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Abhishek Sharma, Anant Singh, Eshita Ghosh, Harsho Mohan Chattoraj, Sidharth Panwar–Munkeeman (2011)

Posted in Abhishek Sharma, Adventure, Anant Singh, Carla Bozulich, Constellation Records, Death, Delhi-6, Eshita Ghosh, Evangelista, Gorillas, Graphic Novel, Harsho Mohan Chattoraj, Mad Magazine, Short Books, Sidharth Panwar, Tere Bin Ladem, Violence on May 20, 2014| Leave a Comment »

1352113437munkeemanSOUNDTRACK: EVANGELISTA-Hello, Voyager [CST050] (2008).

helloThis is Carla Bozulich’s first “band” on Constellation. I didn’t really care for her solo album because it sounded way too all over the map.  She has brought in some great musician to rein her in somewhat and it really helps.  This album is still loose and wild and uncomfortable and at times hard to listen to and also really cathartic.  It feels like there is direction to the madness.

The first song is probably the least appealing.  It’s almost a free form poetry slam, but there’s enough incidental music to make it feel like there should be more.–the music doesn’t necessarily follow what’s going on, as if the musicians were told to do what they wanted but weren’t listening to her.

That improv feeling exists throughout the album, but the other songs feel like they have a structure and a melody which really really help.  Like “Smooth Jazz” in which the drums keep a loud steady beat which regulates the tempo and makes her screams all the more intense.  Or “Lucky Lucky Luck” in which a beautiful vocal melody and backing vocal combine with pulsing bass to make a platform for the noisy guitars.  “For The L’il Dudes ” is a creepy string quintet.  But “The Blue Room” is a full complex song with a captivating melody and strings that really work well.

“Truth Is Dark Like Outer Space” is a heavy rock song with great distortion, while “the Frozen Dress” brings back the creepy and spooky sounds. “Paper Kitten Claw” reunites those minimal sounds with a mellow melody.  It feature the great lyric (and theme) “Every time you see the word never, cross it out.”  The disc ends with “Hello, Voyager!” Crazy noises open this 12 minute ramble.  Carla sounds like a crazy preacher and by the end it’s just a free form chaotic mind fuck.  But in a good way.

It’s not always fun to see where Carla’s mind will take you but in this case the crazy trip is disturbingly fun.  Not for the faint of heart.

[READ: May 18, 2014] Munkeeman

This comic came across my desk and I was intrigued by it.  I’ve never read a graphic novel published in India (and written in English) before.  One thing that struck me about the drawing style was how dark (full of a lot of lines and very little white space) the book was.  It’s very busy, demanding a lot of attention.  I prefer my graphic novels to be a little more open and less claustrophobic (okay, I’ll say it, more “white”–racist!–meaning I like more white space in the drawings because I find the heavily drawn dark lines to be a little too busy for me).  But having said that, I enjoyed this style.  The details were always interesting to check out, especially the crowd scenes were Sharma has a lot of fun with background characters (it reminded me of Mad Magazine a bit).

At the same time I was also somewhat surprised at how conventional the story looked.  I don’t know what I was expecting–something more decisively Indian perhaps, but this could have come from an underground comic publisher anywhere.

This is all background to say how much I enjoyed this kind of twisted book.

Incidentally Sharma also directed a film called Tere Bin Laden which is a comedy about an Osama bin Laden double and which sounds quite funny.  I’m going to have to give that a try if I can find it.

So the book starts with an explanation about Munkeeman–he appeared (for real) as an unseen villain in the Hindi film Delhi-6 (which I’ve never seen).  You don’t need to see that movie to quickly learn that there was a villain (the Black Monkey) who is now getting his story told from his point of view.  Especially since the prologue fills you in that nobody ever got a full glimpse of him but he was referred to as The Munkeeman. (more…)

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