SOUNDTRACK: THE SILVER MT. ZION ORCHESTRA & TRA-LA-LA BAND (WITH CHOIR)-“This Is Our Punk-Rock,” Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing, [CST027] (2003).
This album is a pretty massive change for A Silver Mt Zion. It both brings this band closer to their alter ego GYBE but also pushes them further away at the same time. How? Well, musically, this album sounds a lot more like GYBE–epic songs all over ten minutes with lots of strings and soaring moments. But the big difference now is that every song has vocals (hence the new title of the band). The line up has stayed the same although they have many guests for the choir. The choir is referred to on the album as Thee Rusted Satellite Choir.
“Sow Some Lonesome Corner So Many Flowers Bloom” opens the disc with someone counting of “1234… 12345678.” And then a simple guitar and bass melody starts up. The song sounds fairly conventional, in fact. And then the choir kicks in. Many many voices singing, “Ahhhh.” And then a solo voice continues the “Ahhhs” in another pitch while the choir continues. I love this whole introduction–the various keys the voices are in, how the bass voices start singing “fa fa fa la la so” and on and on in varying formats. The choir (a bunch of friends and bandmates) sounds great–not perfect but perfect for this song. This lasts for about 7 minutes before the choir fades and the rest of the song begins with a swelling of droning music. Strings come in and the song stays quiet for a couple of minutes before the guitar riff from the beginning returns this time with string accompaniment instead of voices. Around 12 minutes the strings change to something else–more grandiose music which sounds amazing. About a minute later the drums begin and the song takes on a whole new style. This more rocking sound continues until the end of the song. It’s awesome.
“Babylon Was Built on Fire/StarsNoStars” opens with staccato echoed guitars (it also feels a bit like Pink Floyd). There’s ambient washes of guitars that float around, but the whole things sounds very trippy (not a sound I associate with this band). About six minutes in, Efrim begins singing. This is the first time he’s sung quite so loudly and clearly. His voice is anguished and a bit harsh, but it works pretty well with the violins and the cool bassline that walks throughout the song. With about 4 minutes left, the music changes direction. The guitar starts playing a single note, growing louder and louder as the strings surround the guitar and voice: “Citizens in their homes and missiles in their holes.” Efrim (I assume) sings a round with himself as more and more lines of text fill the song. Although his voice doesn’t sound radically different in each one, he does adjust volume and tone enough to make it sound pretty interesting.
“American Motor over Smoldered Field” is the shortest song on the disc at 12 minutes. It begins with a simple acoustic guitar melody (quite pretty) and Efrim singing over it (I appreciate the different vocal styles in this song). It’s really quite a compelling song as that guitar continues and the strings come in behind it. Around four minutes in, the drums crash and the song takes off. The strings change and the song becomes very intense–faster and louder. This lasts about three minutes before a staccato guitar picks up and choral voices are heard way in the background. The voices (all Efrim, I believe) build and build as the guitar maintains. Around nine minutes the strings and guitars change and the song flows as a new vocal line joins in “this fence around your garden won’t keep the ice from falling.”
The final song, the 14 minute “Goodbye Desolate Railyard” also opens with acoustic guitar and Efrim’s vocals. The song (an elegy for a dying city) remain simple–acoustic guitar, simple violin and bass notes. The song is repetitive, lulling the listener into as sense of contentment. Although at around 5 minutes, the violins swell and become a little unpleasant–kind of harsh and a little staticky. This continues for some 5 minutes until it is replaced by the rather close up sound of a freight train going slowly down a track. After two minutes of this, the acoustic guitar returns with Efrim singing (in a very Neil Young kind of voice) “every body gets a little lost sometimes.” The full choir joins in to sing these final words for a several rounds before fading out.
[READ: May 10, 2016] Breach Point
Steve and I are pals of Facebook. If I may wax jealous for a minute, Steve has done everything that I’d ever wanted to do when I was younger–he’s been in a band (cuppa joe–they released several really good albums); he’s a graphic designer, something I always imagined being when I grew up; and now he has written a novel. So, yes, basically I hate Steve. Except that, of course, I don’t hate Steve.
I hate him even less because this book is not only really good, but it has brought back a part of my childhood that I had forgotten about.
When I (and anyone else who grew up in the New Jersey area in the 70s) was a kid, there were always commercials for Brigantine Castle in Brigantine NJ. The commercials scared the hell out of me and I was always terrified to go to this place. I knew it was down the shore but never exactly where. And there were times when we drove to the shore and I was convinced we were going to the castle instead (totally false, Brigantine was way further north than any beach we would have gone to). And then Brigantine Castle burned down. Interestingly, after watching these commercials again coupled with The Haunted Mansion (another commercial played quite often), I learned that the Haunted Mansion was in Long Branch. I never went to that Haunted House either, although I have since been to the convention center that now stands where the Haunted Mansion once stood before it burned down.
Yes, Both Brigantine castle and the Haunted Mansion burned down. People know what happened in the Haunted Mansion fire, but the Brigantine Castle fire is shrouded in mystery.
This is all a long way to say that Steve has written a book that is based around this mystery.
Clara is a 16-year-old girl who travels to Breach Point for the summer. She has gotten a job at an engineering firm and she is going to live with her Aunt Maureen. When the book first opens, we see her on the bus, happy to get away from her mother and excited but nervous about gong to this place that she vaguely remembers. (more…)
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SOUNDTRACK: BIO RITMO-Tiny Desk Concert #392 (September 29, 2014).
Bio Ritmo is a nine-piece band that has played salsa music for 23 years (as of 2014). The back beat and rhythm is pure salsa–there’s a drummer (who has that classic salsa drum sound) and two bongo players. There’s shakers and scrapers and timbales and congas and a cowbell.
I Just Read About That... 