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Archive for the ‘Short Story’ Category

SOUNDTRACK: WAVVES-King of the Beach (2010).

I feel like I shouldn’t like Wavves.  There’s os much to dislike about them (or him,  I should say, since it’s almost entirely the product of one guy). He’s bratty, fans seem to dislike him (do a search for Wavves live), and in the first live show that I downloaded, he seemed a bit disdainful of the audience.

And yet, I really like this album. It’s fast and punky and reminds me of some of the best summer punk music from my high school days (Surf Punks anyone?).

So Williams plays all the instruments (with a few exceptions), and the sound is consistent through: a trebly guitar (the perfect sound for surf music, although he doesn’t play surf music at all).  Fast punky drums and William’s voice which is not so much whiny as bratty–the lyrics play out this bratty idea too:

bet you laugh right behind my back/I won’t ever die/I’ll go surfing in my mind/I’m not supposed to be a kid/but I’m an idiot/I’d say I’m sorry/but it wouldn’t mean shit

or

My, my own friends/Hate my guts/So what? Who gives a fuck?

(from “Green Eyes,” which sounds like a ballad but soon rocks out).

Of course, it’s not all just punky tracks, “When Will You Come” has the drums of a 50’s doo wop song (no one would mistake it for a doo-wop song, though) including his falsetto’d voice.  And “Baseball Cards” has a similar inspiration–although again, sounding nothing really like that style of music.  Even “Mickey Mouse” opens with what sounds like the music from “Da Doo Ron Ron” (indeed it is a sample from the song, but manipulated slightly).

“Convertible Balloon” sounds like a quirky Japanese pop confection.  And, “Post Acid” which is a punky bratty song has a wonderful part where the song stops and they make crazy grunting sounds which I like very much.

It’s not smooth summer music by any means, but it is fun and energizing.  Perfect punk beach soundtrack.

[READ: July 11, 2011] “Married Love”

This story had me fooled from the outset.

Recently we listened to Judy Blume’s Fudge-a-mania.  In that story Fudge, who is 5, says that he is going to marry Sheila Tubman, his big brother’s arch nemesis.  Everyone laughs, and we ultimately learn why he wants to marry her (I won’t spoil it).  In this Tessa Hadley story, Lottie, a nineteen year old girl (who looks about thirteen) announces that she is going to get married.  As in Fudge-a-mania, the family is bemused by the idea and laughs about it, until Lottie reveals that she is quite serious.

Things get even “funnier” when the family learns who she is planning to marry: Edgar Lennox, a former teacher who is forty-five years older than her and who is currently married.  Ha Ha Ha, says her family until, Oh, she is serious.

The story surprises even further when they go through with the wedding (about half way through the story). (more…)

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SOUNDTRACKS. CAREY-Live at Sasquatch Music Festival, May 29, 2011 (2011).

I learned about S. Carey through NPR.  S. Carey is the drummer for Bon Iver and he set out on his own playing these cool, atmospheric songs.  What I like best about them is that they feature the vibes.

The whole set has a cool, chilled out sound.  The vocals are slow and dream-like (I’m sure there are lyrics, but I don’t know them) and at times he sounds not unlike Dallas Green from City and Colour.

When Sean (he is the S.) Carey banters with the crowd, he’s very friendly and relaxed.  I especially like the anecdote about going to the Twin Peaks Cafe and hearing Audrey’s music from the show (which the band then plays).  The Twin Peaks sounds melds perfectly with their own sound, which should give you an idea of what the band sounds like.

The songs are about 4 or five minutes except for “Mothers” which tops out at over 8 minutes and actually gets pretty raucous by the end.  For this band it’s a wild song ending.  It’s a good set.  And the surprise cover of Björk’s “Unravel,” which melds perfectly with “All We Grow” is a nice treat.

I don’t know if I’d want to see them live (I like my shows a bit more uptempo) but it’s a great relaxing set.  Of course, having said that, the final track, “Leave” is the most conventional-sounding with a really catchy chorus and a somewhat faster pace.  It’s my favorite song of theirs.

[READ: July 13, 2011] “Homage to Hemingway”

Like the students in this story, I was initially put off by the title of this book because I have grown to dislike Hemingway (probably unfairly, more of a decades-long, knee-jerk reaction to him). But I’m glad I read it because of a couple of things.  One: it was a good story.  Two: it is actually an homage to one of Hemingway’s stories (called “Homage to Switzerland”) so it’s doubly meta-.

In “Homage to Switzerland,” there are three brief stories.  In each one an American man waits for a train in a Swiss station.  Each man follows the same basic trajectory in the story, meeting a waitress but having no real resolution.  Perhaps the men, even though they had different names, were maybe the same person.

Barnes’ story also has three parts, although it is pretty clear that the man is the same in each part, despite their different section titles.  In 1. The Novelist in the Countryside he helps students with their fiction (I rather like reading stories about fiction writing classes, as odd as that sounds). (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: POTTY UMBRELLA-4 Tracks on MySpace (2007).

The internet is a fascinating thing.  While looking up Basia Bulat, I stumbled upon a Polish music website.  That site featured a review of an album by Noël, Pleszyńskiego, Maćkowiaka.  It turns out that Artur Maćkowiak was also in a band called Potty Umbrella.  And Potty Umbrella have a MySpace page with 4 songs on it from their 2007 album Forte Furioso.  

Potty Umbrella is a (mostly) instrumental band that plays pretty great alternative/psychedelic/ jazzy rock.  I suppose they’re a jam band, although the Polish language SavageSaints blog (technically called … którędy pójdą dzicy święci) describes them as “New wave of Polish post-jazz.”

The songs are wonderful.  “Gone” opens with the waving guitar and delicate riffs of an Explosions in the Sky song.  But it soon shifts with the propulsive bass of a jazz song.  It’s a wonderful medley of the two styles.  And when the keyboards come over the top, it adds yet another layer of musical stew to this mix.

“Jet Lag” continues the manic fun with a 6 minute  (actually most  of the songs are 6 minute) blast of energy.  Crashing drums open a sinister spy-movie theme (with wicked-sounding guitar lines).  By the middle of the song, wah wah guitars and super fast keyboards have converted this into a cool jam.

The track “Dr. Pizdur” is wonderfully wild, with some great keyboard sounds over the top of the funky guitar/bass lineup.  And the live track “Nymph’s Song” (sung in rather forced English) rocks really hard.

Potty Umbrella will never have a big following in the States (although there are YouTube videos of them playing in Canada), but the underground fanclub can start right here.

[READ: June 24, 2011] “Gravel”

Readers here know that I love Alice Munro.  I think that she is one of the best short stories writers around.   Of course, if you know what other kinds of writers I like you might be surprised by this declaration–because I love florid prose.  But Alice Munro is the antithesis of that.  She writes succinct stories, with very little in the way of flourishes.  Sometimes they have action, but usual there’s very little and, like in this story, the action is not the point of the story.  And yet for all of that, the stories are quite powerful.

This is the story of a young girl (written from the point of view of the girl when she is an adult).  When her parents separated she, her mother and her older sister Caro moved to a trailer park (with their dog Blitzee).  The reason her parents separated is because her mother became pregnant.  And she told everyone that the baby was Neal’s.  Neal was an actor in the town’s summer theater troupe (he drifted from job to job but always had enough to get by).

Caro was a headstrong girl, but since this is her sister’s story we see Caro’s actions from her sister’s perspective.  On two occasions, Caro sneakily brought Blitzee to their old house (where their father still lived)–pretending that he had run back to the house.  The parents were amazed and perplexed at first, but caught on when it happened again so soon. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACKNOËL, PLESZYŃSKI, MAĆKOWIAK-“Salty Air” (2011).

While looking for videos of Basia Bulat, I stumbled upon a Polish music site.  The site featured a review of this album and a free stream of this song.

The album is a collaboration of artists Ann Noël, Grzegorza Pleszyńskiego and Artura Maćkowiaka (Ann Noël, Grzegorz Pleszynski and Artur Maćkowiak).  Their website explains the collaboration (in translated English obviously):

It is for the first time that Fluxus artist Ann Noël and a visual artist Grzegorz Pleszynski engage in a music venture. For Maćkowiak, a musician from Potty Umbrella and Something Like Elvis, this project has become an unprecedented way to go beyond rock band routines known for years.

Potty Umbrella?  Love it.

Anyhow, this is experimental improv music of the most fascinating kind. Especially since, “Ann and Grzegorz have never played music or any instrument.”  The site allows you to listen to all of the tracks.  “In Emmet’s Bag” is a spoken word piece in the spirit of Laurie Anderson (the spoken part is in English).  And “Hey Man!” is a pretty conventional guitar with spoken word piece.

But it’s this track, “Salty Air” that I keep coming back to.  It opens with some guitar waves. Then a simple repeated riff entrs the mix.  And after a minute or so, distorted, echoed vocals speak underneath the music.  I think it’s in English but that’s irrelevant because the repeating and echoing makes it almost incomprehensible.

It doesn’t evoke a mood so much as a kind of helplessness.  But it’s a beautiful helplessness.  Especially when the second voice comes in, sounding almost inhuman as it moans over the top of everything else.  It’s quite a track.

 You can hear this song (and others, and download the CD for $.50) at their site.

[READ: July 10, 2011] “The Swan”

“The Swan” was a wonderfully dark and confusing story.  I loved everything about it.  It opens with the very simple scene of David coming home from work and knowing something was wrong.  His wife Suzie is acting very strange, and where the hell is the car?  Suzie tells him that she was hit by a car and that her car was totalled.  Why didn’t she call him at work?  She didn’t think it was that big of a deal.

He doesn’t know what to think so he turns his anger towards his seventeen year old son (from his first marriage).  Jamie is upstairs in his room, smoking pot and more or less ignoring everything around him (a trait he has perfected).  When David finally breaks through to Jamie, he learns the truth–Suzie was hit by a swan.

The story unfolds a little more: Suzie imagined that the swan was David’s first wife, coming to give her a message.  David is more freaked out by this than Suzie seems to be.  He can’t understand why suddenly all these years later, she is so upset about his first wife (who died, before David met Suzie, by the way).  Suzie wants to know why David never talked about her (she didn’t want to know back then).  And then finally she winds up spending most of her time with a sketchy woman across town. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: BLACK MOUNTAIN-Live at Sasquatch, May 30, 2011 (2011).

The previous Black Mountain live show I downloaded from NPR was a real disappointment.  For me the major problem was Amanda Webber’s voice–she applied a really harsh vibrato to the end of every single line.  It was so pronounced it sounded almost like a stutter.  I found it very distracting.

She doesn’t do that here, which automatically makes this set 100 times better (she has a minor vibrato on a few places, which is totally fine).  This Sasquatch concert covers songs from all three of their albums, which really showcases the diversity they explore within their trippy, space-rock, metal sound.  It works like a (brief) greatest hits for the band.

And the band sounds comfortable and fresh in this live setting (the guitars are fantastic and the keyboards add a wonderful spacey feel to the mix).  The two tracks of “Wucan” and “Tyrants” is particularly amazing; it’s interesting that they play four songs from their middle album and only three from their most recent.

Regardless, this release has won back my faith in Black Mountain live.

[READ: July 13, 2011] “The Gourmet Club”

I’d never heard of Tanizaki before and I haven’t really read that much Japanese fiction.  This translation by Paul McCarthy was really fantastic, and I never felt like I was reading a translation.

When I started this story (the first fiction from Lucky Peach), I was concerned that it was going to be the same kind of story as Neil Gaiman’s “Sunbird” (I realize “Sunbird” was published much later than “The Gourmet Club” originally written in 1919), but I’m glad it didn’t.

Essentially, this story focuses on five Japanese men who live to eat.  They are Epicurean to the highest degree, eating only the best at least once a day and often to bursting.  They go through all of the restaurants in Japan, traveling across the island to find new foods.  But they soon reach the end of their new food options. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: GOGOL BORDELLO-Trans-Continental Hustle (2010).

When I first heard Gogol Bordello, they were touring for this album (thanks NPR).  Consequently, I knew this album pretty well when I bought it.  At first I felt that it didn’t have the vibrancy of the live show (how could it?).  But after putting it aside for a few weeks, when I re-listened, I found the album (produced by Rick Rubin) to be everything I expect from Gogol Bordello: loud, frenetic fun, a bit of mayhem, and some great tunes that sound like traditional gypsy songs, but which I assume are not.

While I was listening to the album, I kept thinking of The Pogues.  They don’t really sound anything alike but they have that same feel of punk mixed with traditional music.  For The Pogues, it’s Irish trad, and for GB it’s a gypsy sound–I’m not sure if it is attributable to any specific locale.  But they have a common ground in a kind of Spanish-based trad style.  From the Pogues, you get a song like “Fiesta” which is overtly Spanish.  From GB, you get songs like “My Companjera” or “Uma Menina Uma Cigana.”  Singer/ringleader Eugene Hutz has been living in Brazil, and he has really embraced the culture (and the accent).  He also sings in a kind of drunken tenor (his accent is probably more understandable than MacGowan’s drunken warble, but not always).

I’m led to understand that previous albums were a bit more high-throttle from start to finish.  This disc has a couple of ballads.  At first they seem to not work as well, but in truth they help to pace the album somewhat.

It’s obvious this band will not suit everyone’s tastes, but if you’re looking for some high energy punk with some ethnic flare, GB is your band (and if you like skinny guys with no shirts and big mustaches, GB is definitely your band.  It is entirely conceivable that Hutz does not know how to work a button).

[READ: June 20, 2011] All the Anxious Girls on Earth

I’ve really enjoyed Zsuzsi’s stories in recent issues of The Walrus.  So much so that I wanted to get a copy of her new book.  It wasn’t available anywhere in the States yet, so I went back and got her first collection of short stories.

This collection felt to me like a younger, less sophisticated version of Zsuzsi’s later works that I liked so much.  This is not to say that I didn’t like them.  I just wasn’t as blown as w.

“How to Survive in the Bush”
I had to read the opening to this story twice for some reason.  The second read made much more sense and I was able to follow what was going on (I think there were a few terms that I didn’t know–a 1941 Tiger Moth, East Kootenays–that were given context after a few pages.  It transpires that this is a story o a woman who has given up her life to move to the boonies with/for her husband.  The whole story is written in second person which while typically inviting, I found alienating.  It made the story harder to read for me, but once I got into the groove of it I found it very rewarding. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: KOPECKY FAMILY BAND-Embraces EP (2008).

I learned about Kopecky Family Band from NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert.  When I investigated further, I found that I could download this EP for free. I compared their Tiny Desk show favorably to The Head and the Heart.  This earlier EP has a bit more punky edge to it (as their other stuff may as well–Tiny Desk doesn’t really lend towards punk).

And so this EP leads me to compare them more towards Stars.  But perhaps we’ll call them a more acoustic version of Stars.  There is some wonderfully intense musical construction on this EP, and the dynamic of the duel vocalists really bring great tensions.

This is a wonderful EP.  The strings belie the rather heavy chords  (especially on “Trainwreck”) and the harmonies throughout are really infectious.

[READ: June 30, 2011] “A Mouthful of Cut Glass”

I’ve really enjoyed Tessa Hadley’s recent stories in The New Yorker.  So I decided to go back through their archives and read the other stories of hers that they have published.  It turns out that she has been published in the New Yorker since 2002.  But many of the earlier stories were collected in her previous collection which I’ll read one of these days.  But rather, I started with the first ones that have yet to be collected.

“A Mouthful of Cut Glass” is a conflation of two expressions, neither of which I was familiar with: “talking through a mouth full of plums” and “an accent like cut glass.”  The malaprop came from the protagonist’s boyfriends’ mother.  And yet, I say protagonist as if Shiela is the real protagonist.  The story quite clearly opens with Neil.

In 1952 Neil was born into a very poor household.  But over the years, he was able to rise above his sattion and become a successful University student.  It was at University that Neil met Sheila.  Sheila grew up in a vicar’s house with a gaggle of brothers and sisters.  The two of them hit it off very well and began a serious relationship. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-35 Rhums (2008).

This is a charming and very French sounding soundtrack. A delightful melody runs throughout the disc (which totals just over 25 minutes).

When Sarah first heard it, she said, “What’s this French music you’re listening to?”  And indeed, it is very French-sounding. There are very simple instruments: melodica, acoustic guitars, piano.  And that melodica is a prominent sound–giving it a sense of intrigue as well as a sense of solitude (the melodica can sound so yearning).  But it’s not all melodica and intrigue; for instance, there’s some delicate xylophone on “Night Time Apartments.”

There are also several snippets from the movie online.  Here’s one clip (with Tindersticks score underneath):

Of the new soundtracks releases this one is my favorite.  And it’s one that I could see listening to for fun.

[READ: June 16, 2011] “The Rules of Engagement”

This is the final story in The Walrus‘ Summer Reading issue.  As I mentioned, the intro states: “We asked five celebrated writers to devise five guidelines for composing a short story or poem. They all traded lists–and played by the rules.”  Alexi Zenther was given rules by Sarah Selecky (which I posted below).

I really enjoyed this story, despite the immoral behavior.  Susan and her friends from high school (it’s ten years after high school now) are enjoying a foreign vacation for a week.  The first thing we see is a man seducing Susan.  They call him “Fork” because after a few hours of flirting, he asked, “And now we fork?”  Amusingly, for someone who made a living seducing women, he was bad in bed.

The other women also meet and bed these professional gigilos.  After sex, one of them simply walked over to the woman’s wallet and took money when he was ready to leave.  She notes that he took “probably less than I would have given him if he had asked.”

The women are in various stages of relationships, one woman is divorced, another is serially monogamous and a third is married (that’s the immoral part).

There’s a wonderful diversion in the story that flashes back to Susan’s grandfather Bert.  Bert had a U-pick apple stand and the girls worked there for many summers.  There’s an especially tender moment in which Susan and Bert are wandering the island and they see a wild horse.  And the scene fills Susan (and the reader) with a sense of wonder at her grandfather. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-Claire Denis Film Scores 1996-2009: L’Intrus [CST077] (2004).

This score comes from Claire Denis’ 2004 film L’Intrus.  The soundtrack was done by Stuart Staples.  In the booklet he talks about how conventional scoring just didn’t seem appropriate for the film, so he chose this rather noise-filled style.

It is a noisy, menacing work (L’Intrus means The Intruder, so that makes sense).  The sounds are clanky and squeaking, creating an ominous atmosphere.

But what’s most interesting about the score is that despite this limited collection of sounds, he creates a musical work out of it that is interesting to listen to on its own.  The track “Horse Dreams” is full of discordant notes and screeches.  While “The Black Mountain” features a solo horn over the noises.  It’s not easy listening, but it is certainly evocative.

This score is also very short about 25 minutes or so).  The movie is 130 minutes.  I wonder what other sounds are in the film?

[READ: June 15 2011] “Madame Poirer’s Dog”

This is the second story in The Walrus’ Summer Reading issue.  As I mentioned, the intro states: “We asked five celebrated writers to devise five guidelines for composing a short story or poem. They all traded lists–and played by the rules.”  Kathleen Winter was given rules by Alexi Zenther (which I posted below).

I didn’t enjoy this story all that much.  More specifically, I enjoyed the story within the story, but the full, proper story was a little too indistinct to me: It felt kind of all over the place.  In some ways this is appropriate as the story is set in an old folks’ home.  The titular dog comes into play throughout the story and the hard and fast facts of the dog’s tale give some grounding to the story.

The dog’s story is told in a just-the-facts, not-the-details style.  And the dog’s story is a funny story.  It involves a chastity belt (for the dog), and another dog’s skill at the belt’s removal.  But  the funniest part came at the end when the narrator criticized her son’s wife because she would be the kind of person who would ask for details “that no one cares to remember: what exactly does it look like, a chastity belt for digs, and of what material is such a thing made?”

The bookend parts that surrounded the story just kind of fade from my memory.

The five rules from Alexi Zenther: (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-Claire Denis Film Scores 1996-2009: Vendredi Soir [CST077] (2002).

This score was created by Dickon Hinchliffe and the liner notes indicate that it was something of a jumping off point for his future film scores.  This was the third score that the band created for Denis (after Nenette & Trouble).  Stuart Staples was working on the latest Tindersticks album so Dickon took over all of the duties on this one.

This is a beautiful, melancholy soundtrack, full of gorgeous swelling strings and simple piano notes.  It doesn’t remind one all that much of  Tindersticks, but it’s not terribly far removed from their sound either.

The whole score (which is paired here with the score from L’Intrus) is 25 minutes, which made me wonder whether this is a full length film, or just a film with lots of silence (or, perhaps non-Hinchcliffe music that wasn’t included here).  [The film is 90 minutes long].

Pairing it with L’Intrus makes sense in terms of space, but the two scores could not be more different from each other.

[READ: June 15, 2011] “The Cat”

This is the first story in The Walrus’ Summer Reading issue.  As I mentioned, the intro states: “We asked five celebrated writers to devise five guidelines for composing a short story or poem. They all traded lists–and played by the rules.”  Sarah Selecky was given rules by Kathleen Winter (which I posted below).

The first line of the story really sets up the whole thing: “I am not at all surprised that my father has come back to earth in the form of a grey and white cat.”  And indeed, the rest of the story discusses her relationship with her father (those awful fishing trips when she could neither speak nor move) and how he never seemed to be pleased about her.

Now that he’s back as a cat, the dynamic has changed.  Although there’s still fish in their relationship.

I really enjoyed this story,  For although it was brief, it was wonderfully evocative.

Kathleen Winter imposed these rules on the story: (more…)

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