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Archive for the ‘Sex’ Category

Comic Book Tattoo (2008)

Posted in Adventure, Books about music, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Demons, Fables, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gods, Graphic Novel, Hope Larson, LGBTQ, Magic, Marriage Trouble, Military, Nature, Neil Gaiman, Oddities, Religion, Romance, Sara Ryan, Sex, Short Story, Tori Amos, Wikipedia on October 28, 2009| Leave a Comment »

cbtSOUNDTRACK: TORI AMOS-Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009).

aatsIt’s been almost a decade since I was blown away by a Tori Amos album.  I feel like she has really been so engaged in the concept of her albums, that she has lost track of the tunes.  And while I don’t hate anything she’s done in the last few years, I was seriously getting to the point where I wasn’t sure it was worth getting her new releases.

But I was pleasantly surprised with Abnormally Attracted to Sin.  The opening track “Give” reaches back to some of the cool trip-hop stuff from from the choirgirl hotel.  And, the wild guitar work is such a welcome change.  It’s followed by “Welcome to England” which has a cool bass line that also makes me think of choirgirl era Tori (I saw her about three or four times on that tour).  “Strong Black Vine” is middle eastern tinged,  with a cool percussion-filled bridge.  But my favorite part is the dirty-sounding “baby” that opens the chorus.  The chorus also calls back to Boys for Pele era stuff where she used multiple backing vocals (from herself) in the choruses.

“Flavor” brings in some mellowness (and sounds like she was recorded in outer space).  “Not Dying Today” is definitely a silly song (and the one that mentions Neil) but the weirdo bassline is so catchy I am totally hooked by it (I’m also not sure if it says something about me or her that I thought the line was “Neil is thrilled he can say he’s Canadian” (when in fact he’s thrilled that he can say he’s mammalian (I’m not sure which is weirder)).  This also leads to a weird little spoken bit.  The whole thing feels very 80s to me.  But in a good way.

“Maybe California” is one of her piano songs.  When listening to it by itself, it’s quite enjoyable.  But I think it kind of slows the album down after those openers.  Tori has a lot of gorgeous piano ballads (“Northern Lad” still blows me away), and this one is good but not great.  “Curtain Call” is kind of a dud, but it has a great chorus.  And that’s what a lot of the rest of the album feels like for me.  Each song has one part that really hooks me, but it’s usually not a whole song that keeps me.

“Fire to Your Plain” is another bit of a dud.  The little keyboard hits don’t do this song any favors.  “Police Me” has cool guitars and weird sound effects and could have been a choirgirl B-side.  (Although, again, there’s a part after the chorus which is very cool).  And then comes “That Guy.”  I want to like this song so much.  The lyrics are fun, the sound is very torchy and music hall, but I just find it to be ultimately as nondescript as the title.

The title track has a great weird sci-fi keyboard sound, with cool guitars.  But this is yet another example of “Why does she pronounce words like this now?”  If you listen to her earlier records, she had a full command of the English language.  So, why does this song start out with her saying “Impeccable Pec-a-dell-o” (when we all know it is pecadillo).  And what on earth happened to the words in the chorus?  This is the title song.  Why does it sound like she’s singing “I’m marmalade. I trah yak toosee.”  Sure, once I realized it was the title track I could figure it out, but Jesus, woman, what happened to you? (That aside, the song is pretty cool, especially the quiet but bitchin guitars in the way back).  “500 Miles” is a cute song. I sort of don’t like it but the chorus is so frikkin catchy that I can’t turn it off.

The end of the disc feels kind of tacked on to me.   “Mary Jane” is a weird one.  It sounds like an extended version of “Mr Zebra” from Pele, (which I loved, but it was only a minute long), with all kinds of weird lyrics getting tossed around.  It does seem odd to hear her singing about pot, but whatever.  “Starling” sounds great but just never really catches me.  And “Fast Horse” starts out so great: the riff is very cool, but I don’t care for the direction of the chorus. (And the Maserati bit more or less kills the song off).  “Ophelia” has awesome potential of being one of those affecting piano songs, but rather than pulling out all the stops with a kick ass chorus, it just sort of wanders around (I wonder if I’d change my mind about this song if it weren’t so close to the end).  And the disc ends with “Lady in Blue.”  This is definitely one of the weirdest songs she’s ever done.  And I sort of love it.  The sounds she’s twisting out of her organ are insane.  It sounds like her speakers are at the bottom of a pool.  And the chord choices are unexpected.  She really stretches this weird sound for all its worth (including the most egregious of her pronunciations problems: “What es layuft is right.”  Really, Tori, emphasis is one thing, but it’s not cool to make the words wrong).  But anyhow, this undersea adventure stretches out for over 4 minutes, and I’m just about to throw the disc against the wall because it seems like it will never end, and I’m in some kind of trippy suffocating nightmare (in which you kind of like what’s happening at first and then you realize that the pillowcase they put over your head is really a plastic bag) but then she kicks in a solid piano riff and the song absolutely rocks out for the next three minutes.  It’s confident and infectious and ends the disc on a fantastic note.  If that early section were about 2 minutes shorter this would be one of my favorite Tori songs ever.  But I keep reaching that take-the-disc-out! moment before the greatness kicks in.)

My biggest problem with the disc is that (as with past discs) at 75 minutes  it’s just too damned long.  Again, I can’t pick a least favorite song because they all have parts that I really like, I would just like to put the cool parts together and get rid of twenty minutes of the blahs.

The other problem is that I really don’t know what Tori is singing about half the time.  When I first got into her, I was drawn by her lyrics, which were weird but also evocative.  I didn’t really know what she was singing about exactly back then, but I had a pretty good idea.  However, lately it’s just all weird abstractions and general concepts.

I know that I fell for Tori back when she was writing emotionally naked songs.  She was sexually honest and was a breath of fresh air in 1992.  And, sure I wish she would make albums like she did back then, but I know artists need to grow and expand.  And it would be frankly creepy to hear 2009 Tori, wife and mother, singing about guys who can’t make her come.  Right?  I mean, I found her “MILF” line on a recent album to be rather disturbing.  And, I also don’t think I want to hear about the highs and lows of motherhood and parenthood.  So, personal stories are out, I guess.  Alas.  I just hope she can get a little back down to earth (and not necessarily need to be so “wicked” all the time).

The final gripe relates back to what I said in the beginning.  This disc is littered with pictures of Tori in various costumes, evidently acting out scenes from her songs.  The bonus DVD is full of videos for each song.  But each video is basically just her in some outfit and wig wandering around in various places.  It’s a strangely egomaniacal video collection even for a musician.  But so yes, she clearly enjoys this role playing exercise that she’s been on since Strange Little Girls, but it seems like so much extra time is being spent on these “personas.”  I don’t care which personality wrote the sing, I just want it to be good.   And I just miss the old Tori.

I also don’t like to criticize people physically, but I feel like she also looks less pretty than she used to.  After watching 70some minutes of those videos of pretty much just her, I felt like she was too harsh or angular or, dare I say it, old looking.  And I only mention it because she seems so focused on presenting these characters with wigs and make up and the whole shebang, but I think she doesn’t look nearly as pretty as she when she was just Tori, piano player.

But that’s no way to end a music review.  Abnormally Attracted to Sin is certainly her best disc in a decade.  It’s got some great songs and some great sections of songs.  With a judicious editor and someone who can keep her on track when her words start drifting away from what they should properly sound like, (maybe it’s time to look for a producer other than her husband?) Tori could be well on her way to making another totally stellar album.

[READ: October 2009]  Comic Book Tattoo

Sarah gave me this book for Christmas and I’ve been reading it on and off for about 10 months now.  I finally finished the first read through and decided to give it a second go before writing about it.  It took so long not because I didn’t like it but because it is a very awkward book.  It is HUGE.  It is the size of a vinyl LP, but is as thick as about 15 of them.  And it’s heavy!  I had to store it under the bed so I wouldn’t kill myself on it.

What I’m getting at is utter value for money ($30 retail).

But what is it?  Okay, so it is a collection of comics that are “inspired” by Tori Amos songs.  But let’s be clear, these are NOT IN ANY WAY illustrations of the songs.  The stories that are created here have virtually nothing to do with the lyrics, in most cases.  They seem to be inspired by the titles and maybe (sometimes) the mood of the songs themselves.  In many cases, it’s hard to even see what the stories have to do with her at all.  And, I have to say, it makes the whole collection that much stronger.  Even if I love most of the songs that they draw in here, I wouldn’t want to “see” Tori’s songs.  Rather, taking them as a jumping off point lets the authors and artists use what inspired them and ignore the rest. (more…)

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Lee Henderson–“Long Live Annie B.” (The Walrus, October, 2009)

Posted in Boredom, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Consumerism, Drinking, Lee Henderson, Marriage Trouble, Sex, Short Story, The Beatles, The Trews, The Walrus, Virginity (Loss of) on October 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »

walrusoctSOUNDTRACK: THE TREWS-House of Ill Fame (2003).

trewsAfter listening to the new Trews disc, I popped in their first disc.  Mostly because I thought their first one sounded rawer.  And it does.

House of Ill Fame has the same rock feel as the new one does, but it also feels a lot more garagey.  It rocks harder, with more edge.  The songs are more memorable to me, mostly because they are a little more distinctive.  There’s some songs where the basslines really stand out (when the guitars either drop out or play some lighter riffs).

But overall the disc just feels less polished.  And it’s all the better for it.

Especially because my disc comes with a live EP.  And the band really rocks live.  They play louder, grittier, and with more energy.  These songs really come alive  on the disc.  “Tired of Waiting” one of my favorite songs on the disc, segues very nicely into the Na Na part of “Hey Jude” which is a highlight on the live disc as well.

While No Time for Later is certainly enjoyable, I simply prefer the rawer sound of House of Ill Fame. I’ve not heard the middle disc, Den of Thieves, so I’m not sure if it falls somewhere in between the two or not.  I’m sure the songs are solid though.

[READ: October 12, 2009] “Long Live Annie B.”

This is a dark story set in the winterlands of Saskatchewan.

Annie B. grows up in a destitute part of town with a destitute mom.  With few choices, Annie B., at fifteen, decides to get involved with an older guy.  Just for sex; a non-meaningful relationship.  But despite the casualness Annie B. seems to get a lot out of it, at least in terms of cinematic education.  She and her man watch all kinds of films (primarily horror films, but also foreign ones).

But with one action for him, she decides that she has had enough and breaks up with him. (more…)

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The Fifth Column (1996) & The Flexicon (1998)

Posted in A.M. Homes, Albert Goldbarth, Books about writers, Constellation Records, David Foster Wallace, Diane Ackerman, Eric Chenaux, Exquisite Corpse, Funny (strange), Gangsters, Infinite Summer, Irvine Welsh, Jonathan Franzen, Meta, Oddities, Paul Debraski, Poetry, Postmoderism, Rick Moody, Sex, Short Story, Smarty Pants, Susan Daitch, Violence on October 6, 2009| 1 Comment »

coprseSOUNDTRACK: ERIC CHENAUX-Sloppy Ground [CST052] (2008).

sloppy

It took several listens before I fully enjoyed this disc.  There’s something about Chenaux’s voice that is very calming, almost soporific.  And, since his general songwriting style is kind of ambient and almost formless–with no real choruses or even rhythms, the disc tends to get lost in the ether.  There’s also some unusual instrumentation (electric harp & guitarjo (!)) too, which continues the otherworldly feel of the disc.

What really hooked me into the disc though was the three “funk marches” that distinguish themselves from the rest of the disc.  “Have I Lost My Eyes” comes in like a raging gust of fresh air after the first three drifting tracks.  It’s got a strong melody and raw drums that propel this fantastic track.  “Boon Harp” & “Old Peculiar” have a similar strong vibe.  And they are really the anchors of this disc.

The rest of the album isn’t bad, I just find it hard to listen to in one lengthy sitting.  The opening three songs tend to drift a round a little too much.  But one at a time, these songs are pretty cool.

[READ: Last Week of September 2009] The Fifth Column & The Flexicon

These two pieces were part of the list of uncollected David Foster Wallace publications.  The difference with thee two pieces is that he plays a small role along with several other authors.  Both of these pieces are sort of a exquisite corpse idea. Although unlike a true exquisite corpse, (in which the author sees only a little of the end of the previous author’s work) it’s pretty clear that the authors had access to the entire work.  The quotes in bold are from The Howling Fantods.

For a delightful exquisite corpse piece that I authored see the untitled comic strip on my website.  About ten years ago I started an exquisite corpse comic strip and sent it to a number of people who all had a lot of fun continuing the story.  I have finally put it online at paulswalls.com/comic.  (See, artists, I told you I’d do something with the cartoons some day!) (more…)

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Mark Costello & David Foster Wallace–Signifying Rappers: Rap and Race in the Urban Present (1990)

Posted in Books about music, Boston, MA, Consumerism, David Foster Wallace, De La Soul, Essays, Gangsters, History, Ice-T, Infinite Summer, L.L. Cool J, Mark Costello, N.W.A., Public Enemy, Research, Run D.M.C, Schoolly D, Sex, Short Books, Smarty Pants, Steely Dan, Violence on October 5, 2009| 2 Comments »

rapperSOUNDTRACK: SCHOOLLY D-Smoke Some Kill (1988).

schoolySince this disc is featured so prominently in Signifying Rappers (and the book is named after the best track on this disc) I thought I’d dust it off and listen to it again.  I got this disc probably in 1989 at the suggestion of my friend Al.  He recommended “No More Rock N’ Roll,” I think.

I haven’t listened to the disc in years, probably a decade.  The last time I listened, I think I wasn’t all that impressed by it, which is why it’s funny to me how much significance the book gives this disc/track.  In listening again, I felt more or less the way I did last time, although interestingly, after reading the book, I agreed that some of the tracks are pretty good.

“Signifying Rapper” in particular, seemed better after DFW’s analysis of it (he discusses it in the tradition of the trickster narrator, and I agree it’s a good one).  Although, at one point in the book DFW decries the misogyny in a lot of rap, but he doesn’t mention the homophobia.  And, despite the trickster style in this song, the homophobia is pretty outrageous (even if, in a surprising twist, the “faggot” kicks the “pimp’s” ass).  But really, the thing that upsets the pimp so much, that he went off to fight the faggot about is this rather absurdly childish set of insults:  your dad’s a faggot, your mom’s a whore, your granny’s a dyke and your brother’s a faggot too.  Now, homophobia aside, would these insults really get anyone so angry?   Hard to say.   But regardless of the whole thing, the song is set to the riff from Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” so, that’s pretty fun.

The rest of the disc is a mix of kind of lame tracks and a few good ones.  “Here We Go Again” has some great scratching on it (in fact the scratching throughout the disc is quite good), and there’s some really good background samples on “Gangster Boogie II.”  Although I think the best tracks come near the end: “Treacherous” (which samples or reinterprets Gil Scot-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Televised”) and “Black Man” which features the cool shout-out “What’s the Word?  Johannesburg!).

A few tracks are kind of flat.  “Mr Big Dick,” is, at best, silly and even the title track “Smoke Some Kill” is sort of uninspired.  What’s interesting about somewhat flat style is that this disc has come out after Public Enemy’s wall of sound changed the face of rap.  But Schoolly is sticking with the very sparse Run D.M.C. style.  The difference is that with Run, you had two vocalists, but Schoolly is by himself.  It’s just not quite as exciting.

And, then there’s the aforementioned “No More Rock N’ Roll” which is a companion to “We Don’t Rock, We Rap”.  The whole anti-rock trope rings hollow especially since he samples from it so freely.

It was still early days, but rap has progressed pretty far from this CD.  It also turns out that this disc is really hard to find.  It’s discontinued and lists on Amazon for $50.  How lucky for me!

[READ: October 2, 2009] Signifying Rappers

I wasn’t planning on reading this book this soon.  (I’m  not turning into a DFW addict, I swear).  But this showed up all because of the whims of the interlibrary loan system.  I put holds on books for people all the time, and usually it’s for new, popular books, so it’s often several weeks, sometimes months before the books come in.  I tend to forget that a 19 year old book that nobody is clamoring to read will show up in about 3 days.

So, those of you thinking about reading this book because you want to complete the DFW ouvre were probably wondering if this co-authored book should really count.  And, like, how would you know what he wrote?  Well, I didn’t immediately figure out the patently obvious system that they used in the book: When Mark Costello writes a section it is introduced with a large M.  When DFW gets a section it starts with a large D (see, obvious).   You can also tell because DFW’s section are laden with footnotes and very large words (no, really?)

I think for all readers, the main question is what are these two white, educated, twentysomethings doing writing about rap.  And, they both answer in their own way that, well, they like rap.  A lot.  In fact, DFW goes on to say that rap circa 1989 is the only musical genre that is interesting after some five years of commercial pap (and he’s pretty accurate with that, actually).  He also notes that as of their writing of the book there had been no real in-depth treatises written on rap.  Oh, and lastly, in the spirit of rap itself, they did it because they wanted to do it. (more…)

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Marisa Silver–“Temporary” (New Yorker, September 28, 2009)

Posted in Canadian Music, Clues, Constellation Records, Marisa Silver, Mercury Rev, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, The Flaming Lips, Work on October 4, 2009| 2 Comments »

928

SOUNDTRACK: CLUES-Clues [CST057] (2009).

cluesThis is another of my favorite recent Constellation Records CDs.  Clues remind me of Mercury Rev, if they had remained a more indie/underpolished band instead of their more recent orchestrated pop.  The lead singer sounds a but like Jonathan Donahue (and sometimes Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips) and the band in general plays the sort of unusual pop that these bands have made common.

Every song on this disc is a winner.  It’s even hard for me to pick a favorite, although track number 8 “Cave Mouth” (I have no idea what the songs are about lyrically) is just fantastic: great musical riffs, great breaks, infectiously catchy melody, and yet the whole thing feels just a hair off balance.  It’s sublime.  And the rest of the disc works in a similar way: things are a little off kilter, but that make you listen even harder to find out what’s going on.

The best example of this is the last song: “Let’s Get Strong.”  The song is a pretty, simple piano ballad.  It’s very catchy and quite pretty.  But a few measures into the song, you become convinced that the piano is out of tune.  And as you listen attentively, you can’t decide what’s going on that makes the song sound off.  And by the end, you’re hooked.

Clues is definitely a quirky band.  And yet they are not offputting.  They’re just following their own muses.  And we’re all the better for it.

[READ: September 28, 2009] “Temporary”

This story concerns two women living in Los Angeles. They met when they were both applying for a temp position.  Shelly, the more outgoing of the two invited Vivian to live with her in her new place. The rent is cheap.  The only problem is that it’s a room in a factory, and technically it’s illegal, so if the police ever come they will be evicted on the spot.

And so, the title really conveys the lives that these women lead.

While Shelly’s back story is not really divulged, we learn a bit about Vivian and her upbringing.  When she was young her mother became very ill. They assumed she wouldn’t make it, but, amazingly she pulled through. This incident of more or less self sufficiency led Vivian to lead a rather sensible life, growing up faster than she probably should have.   As such, she is constantly surprised by Shelly’s behavior and lifestyle.

When Vivian landed the temp job, Shelly gave up her job hunt.  And yet Shelly always seems to be able to make the rent with no trouble.  She also has a habit of giving Vivian anything that Vivian complemented her on (which makes Vivian uncomfortable).  Shelly also walks around the apartment in loose robes, and tends to leave her “boyfriends” lying around the same way she leaves her extra cash lying around.

It’s Vivian’s temp job that provides the emotional heart of the story.  She works at an adoption agency transcibing the interviews of prospective adoptees.  One couple in particular grabs her attention.  The man seems like a bully and the wife seem too deferential to be healthy.  Since she listens to their tapes over and over for transcription purposes, she gets the man’s voice ingrained into her head.  It is inevitible that she will encounter these voices in real life, but the where and how are too good to spoil.

The main plot ends before the story ends.  The ending is a coda that ties the whole story together.  It feels extraneous at first and yet upon reflection it works very nicely to wrap up the story.

This was the first story I’ve read by Marisa Silver, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

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Shiny Adidas Tracksuits and the Death of Camp and Other Essays

Posted in Bill Clinton, Books about music, Books about writers, Boredom, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Dave Eggers, David Foster Wallace, Dip-in Books, Donnell Alexander, Drinking, Drugs, Eddie Vedder, Essays, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Gangsters, Glasgow Phillips, Gods, History, Jess Mowry, M. Doughty, Marc Herman, Martha McParlin, McSweeney's, Michael Moore, Might, Missoula, MT, Oddities, Paula Kamen, Political Humor, Politicians, Racism, Religion, Research, Sex, Smarty Pants, Soul Coughing, Supernatural, Technology, Ted Rall, The Future, Travel, Tripp Hartigan, TV on the Radio, Violence, Wikipedia, Zev Borow on October 1, 2009| 1 Comment »

adidasSOUNDTRACK: TV ON THE RADIO-Dear Science, (2008).

sciencThe problem with TV on the Radio for me is that their first EP is so damned good that anything else they do pales in comparison.  Having said that, Dear Science, comes really close to topping that EP.  I liked Cookie Mountain (their previous disc) but I felt like they put so many elements into the mix that it detracted from the best part of the band: Tunde Adepimbe & Kyp Malone’s vocals.

And so, on Dear Science, the vocals are back up front where they belong.  This disc is a lot less busy, which may seem a little like selling out, but instead, it just heightens the complexity and originality of the band’s work.  The disc rocks hard but it also heightens some really cool jazz and dance elements.    But it all comes back to the melodies and vocals for me.  And on Dear Science, they pretty much outdo themselves.

And you can dance to it!

[READ: September 30, 2009] Shiny Adidas Tracksuits and the Death of Camp and Other Essays

After reading David Foster Wallace’s essay in this book, I looked at the other articles here and decided to read the whole thing.  And I’m really glad I did.  It’s an interesting book full of, funny and often thought-provoking pop culture articles circa 1996.  As with some of the other pop culture/political books that I’ve read several years after they were relevant, it’s often weird to look back and see what things fully occupied the popular landscape at the time.  And, when a piece is completed dated, it’s pretty obvious, and sometimes unintentionally funny.  But there are many pieces here that are timeless (or at least hold up for a decade), and those are still really good reads.

This book also does a good job of summarizing the tenor of the defunct Might magazine.  A dose of irony, a splash of humor and a lot of criticism of what’s trendy.

The strange thing to me about this book, though is the targets that they chose to go after sometimes.  Rather than critiquing right-wing attitudes or corporate shenanigans (which they do touch on), they really seem to be after pop and rock celebrity.  For instance, there are two separate articles which take a potshot at Eddie Vedder (this was around the time of the Ticketmaster fiasco which didn’t put him in the best light but which could hardly be seen as only self-serving).  This seems rather unfair, unless his sincerity could really be called into question by a bunch of ironic jokesters.  Magazines like Radar and Spy used to do snarky articles like this. I’d always thought that Might was a little better than that.  But indeed, there’s one or two pieces here that have a holier- (or perhaps indier)-than-thou attitude.   Which may have been fine in the 90s but which seem petulant now.

But aside from those, the irony-free pieces are very enjoyable.  (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999)

Posted in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Chris Knox, David Foster Wallace, Demons, Digression, Flash Fiction, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Harper's, Infinite Summer, John Krasinski, Marriage Trouble, McSweeney's, Meta, Record Labels, Sex, Short Story, Smarty Pants, Snapper, Straightjacket Fits, Suicide, Superette, Supernatural, The 3Ds, The Bats, The Believer, The Chills, The Clean, Topless Women Talk About Their Lives, Violence on September 29, 2009| 1 Comment »

hideousSOUNDTRACK: TOPLESS WOMEN TALK ABOUT THEIR LIVES soundtrack (2006).

topI learned about this soundtrack from a very cool article in The Believer (the beginning of which is online here).  In the piece, the author claims to have never seen the film (he was given the soundtrack by a friend) and he doesn’t want  to change his associations with the music by watching the film.  And now, I too can say I have never seen the film, and likely never will.  And I really enjoy the soundtrack too.

The soundtrack is sort of an excuse to showcase a bunch of bands from New Zealand’s Flying Nun record label.  Featured artists are The 3DS, The Bats, The Clean, Superette, Snapper, The Chills, Straightjacket Fits, and Chris Knox.

It’s nigh impossible to give an overarching style to these songs.  Even when the bands have multiple songs on the soundtrack, they are not repetitive at all.  Even trying to represent a genre would be difficult.  The opener “Hey Suess” is almost a surf-punk song, while Chris Knox’s gorgeous “Not Given Lightly” is a stunning ballad.  There’s a cool shoe-gazer song “Saskatchewan,” and some great simple indie rock (a bunch of other tracks).

The only thing these bands have in common is that they’re all from New Zealand.  And as with any large body of land, no two bands are going to sound alike.  Nevertheless, all of the bands fall under the indie rock umbrella.  It’s a great collection of songs that many people probably haven’t heard.  It’s worth tracking down for the great collection of tunes and, if all you know about New Zealand is The Flight of the Conchords.

[READ: September 24, 2009] Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

After finishing Infinite Jest I wasn’t sure just how much more DFW I would want to read right away (of course, seeing as how I have now read almost all of his uncollected work, that is a rather moot point).  But when I saw that John Krasinski (of TV’s The Office) was making a film of this book, I had to jump in and read it again.

Obviously, there are many questions to be asked about this film ().  Is it going to be based on all the stories in the book?  (Surely not, some are completely unrelated).  Is it going to be just the interviews? (Probably, and yet there’s no overall narrative structure there).  And, having seen the trailer, I know structure is present.  I’m quite interested in the film.  In part because I didn’t LOVE the stories.  Well, that’s not quite right.  I enjoyed them very much, but since they weren’t stories per se, just dialogue, I’m not afraid of the stories getting turned into something else.  The text isn’t sacred to me, which may indeed make for the perfect set-up for a film.

Anyhow, onto the stories.

The obvious joke is that the author of Infinite Jest has created a book with “Brief” in the title!  But indeed, many of these stories are quite brief.  Some are only a couple of paragraphs (which true, from DFW that could still be ten pages).  But, indeed, most of the interviews in the book are brief too (except the final one in the book, which is nearly 30 pages).   (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–“Hail the Returning Dragon, Clothed in New Fire” (Shiny Adidas Tracksuits and the Death of Camp and Other Essays from Might Magazine) (1998)

Posted in David Foster Wallace, Death, Essays, Fables, Infinite Summer, Might, Neutral Milk Hotel, NPR/PRI/PBS, Sex on September 24, 2009| 3 Comments »

shinySOUNDTRACK: NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL-In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998).

neutralI had always put off getting into Neutral Milk Hotel.  They were just another one of those Elephant 6 bands, and there were so many bands and splinter-bands and solo bands that I had to draw the line somewhere.  And Neutral Milk Hotel were on the other side of it.  I hadn’t even heard them, I just decided I couldn’t listen to them.

About four months ago, I heard a piece on NPR about a high school putting on a musical based on this album.  They played bits and pieces of the disc and I was totally blown away.  The play is somehow connected to the Anne Frank story (as the album apparently is, too, although I haven’t been able to figure that out from the lyrics at all).

It also turns out that my friend Jarrett had put “Two-Headed Boy” on a sampler disc for me, so I already DID know some of the disc.

Make no mistake, this is an unusual disc: from the bizarre cover, to the bizarre song titles (“The King of Carrot Flowers”).  And, most notably, to the instrumentation.  Sure it starts out simply enough with some acoustic guitars, but it eventually adds everything from flugelhorn (a recent safe word on How I Met Your Mother)to euphonium to zanzithophone(!) to what I thought was a theremin, but which turns out to be a singing saw (even cooler!).

“The King of Carrot Flowers Pts 2 – 3” begins with the very earnest “I love you, Jesus Christ.”  It eventually morphs into the rollicking Pt 3, with the repeated effort of “I would [x] until I learn to [x]”  It’s frankly an amazing trilogy to open the disc.

The title track and “Two-Headed Boy” continue this fascinating orchestral folk with incredible catchiness and what can only be described as supremely earnest singing.  At times, the singing almost makes one uncomfortable for how naked it sounds.

“The Fool” allows for some interesting marching band type instrumentation, but it is followed by even more earnest singing in “Holland, 1945” a ramshackle song that feels like it is trying to race itself to the end.   And then there’s “Oh Comely” a simple guitar ballad that grows and shrinks for 8 minutes of raw, lyric bending.  Eventually it adds some horns as Magnum sings “we know who our enemies arrrrrrrrrre.”

The whole disc has a sound of being recorded too close to the microphone…with many many sounds crackling into distortion.  And while it does have a feeling of cheapness, it really has more of a feeling of urgency…they couldn’t wait to get these songs out, and damn the recording levels (the guitars on “Ghost” are almost outrageously too loud, even though they are not louder than anything else in the song).

The disc ends with the fun, keyboard and uilleann pipe fueled “The Penny Arcade in Calirfornia” a wonderful instrumental that reprises some of the musical lines from other songs.  And then comes “Two Headed Boy, Pt 2” which doesn’t really reprise the original song. Rather, it is a multi-versed song in which Magnum barely pauses for breath trying to get the lengthy verses (with no evident chorus) out.  It ends with an actual reprise of “Two Headed Boy” and fades out.

It’s a fantastic disc.  Simply fantastic.

Neutral Milk Hotel has basically been on hiatus since this record, so it’s not hard to catch up with their output (2 full lengths and an EP).  It’s just a shame if you waited as long as I did to do it.

[READ: September 18, 2009] “Hail the Returning Dragon, Clothed in New Fire”

When Infinite Jest came out there was a lot of discussion of its being “ironic.”  But generally, it is well established at this point (just look at virtually any post on Infinite Summer) about how un-ironic the book is.  In fact, it rather eschews irony.  (I’m not going to detail why, I promise).

This essay, if nothing else, should hammer home the idea that DFW had very little tolerance for irony (even despite the nature of this book, the magazine it comes from, and some of the other ironic pieces in it). (more…)

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Maile Meloy–Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It (2009)

Posted in Ben Folds, Demons, Drinking, Infinite Summer, Maile Meloy, Marriage Trouble, Missoula, MT, Pregnancy, Sex, Short Story, Threats, Work, Yuck! on September 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

maileSOUNDTRACK: BEN FOLDS-Stems and Seeds (2009).

benI enjoyed Way to Normal, although not as much as previous Ben Folds CDs.  I was listening to Pandora Radio at work and I heard a version of one of the songs from Way to Normal, but it listed it as coming from Stems and Seeds, which I hadn’t heard of.

Stems and Seeds is a sort of fan club release of Way to Normal.  That whole album is remixed, remastered and in a different track order.  It also features B-sides and the “original leaked versions” (ie. not real versions at all) of several of these tracks.

The second disc (actually the first disc) is a collection of audio files that you can upload to the GarageBand program where you can manipulate the files yourself.  I have not even popped the disc in the computer to look at this yet, and I don’t foresee myself doing it any time soon.

But onto the music.

The differences are not vast in the remixes and yet I like them better.  Some excessive bits are lopped off (the “Japanese doctor” voice before “The Bitch Went Nuts” is thankfully gone) as well as a few bits that dragged out “Free Coffee”).   I don’t think of myself as a massive audiophile, but in a side by side comparison the new songs (which are apparently uncompressed like radio-ready songs are) sound cleaner, brighter and just better.  (Which again, is weird since Way to Normal was released just months before this.  Why bother releasing that version at all, I have to wonder.)

There’s also something about the new track order that I like better.  It just flows more smoothly somehow.

And the bonus tracks are also fun.  There’s a live version of “You Don’t Know Me” from a pre-show at Conan.  They practice it without the curse in the lyrics, but they all get a hearty curse-laden shout out at the end.  The “leaked” tracks are also fascinating. Even though they are lyrically not quite up to snuff, they’re not that far removed from Ben’s sillier songs.  But it’s the idea that he wrote these entire songs just to jam the leakers is fascinating to me.  He wrote new melodies and recorded entirely new songs that aren’t real.  And yet now he’s officially released them and they are real. Trippy.

So, if you haven’t yet, skip Way to Normal and get Stems and Seeds. If you already have Way to Normal and didn’t like it, try a track or two from this one, it may turn you around.

[READ: September 13, 2009] Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It

In his Infinite Summer post Colin Meloy plugged the new book that his sister had just written. I wasn’t aware of the book coming out so I was pretty excited to hear about it.  I picked up a copy and finished it in like 2 days.

This is Meloy’s 2nd collection of short stories.

The characters in almost all of the stories are failures. Not losers, mind you, but failures. They have failed at jobs or love or with their family, and the storylines show them coping with the aftermath of their failures.  And note that the failures are never because of inaction, they are because the characters are stuck between two impossible choices or literally insurmountable problems. (more…)

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Periodical: The Week

Posted in Airlines, Art, Authors, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Books about music, Books about writers, Boredom, Canadian Content, Children's Books, Comedians, Comic Strips, Consumerism, Contests, Death, Esquire, Essays, Film & TV, Free Speech, History, LGBTQ, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Military, Morality, Music, Natural Disasters, Neurotics, New Yorker, Oddities, Outer Space, Political Humor, Prison, Racism, Radar, Religion, Research, Robots, Russia, Salon.com, Sex, Sports Illustrated, Suicide, Technology, The Week, Violence, Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me, War, WMDs on September 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

weekI’m not sure how I first learned about The Week. I think I received a trial issue in the mail. But after just one or two issues we were hooked.  The Week is a comprehensive newsweekly, although it offers virtually no original reporting.  It collates news stories and offers opinions from a variety of sources: newspapers, online magazines, political journals etc. And it provides opinions from across the political spectrum.

Each issue has the same set up (although they recently had an image makeover: a new cover design and some unexpected font changes in a few sections, which I suppose does lend to an easier read).

Each issue starts with The main stories… …and how they were covered. The first article is a look at whatever major story captivated the editorials that week.  (The growing gloom in Afghanistan).  And in a general sense of what you get for long articles (the long articles are about 3/4 of a page) You get WHAT HAPPENED, WHAT THE EDITORIALS SAID, and WHAT THE COLUMNISTS SAID.  The What Happened section is a paragraph or two summary of the story.  The editorials offer a one or two sentence summary from sources like USA Today, L.A. Times and The Financial Times, while The Columnists are from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Time.com, for example. (more…)

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