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Archive for the ‘Short Story’ Category

Primo Levi–“Quaestio de Centauris” (New Yorker, June 8 & 15 2015)

Posted in Boris, Centaurs, Fantasy, Horses, Jenny McPhee, New Yorker, Primo Levi, Sex, Short Story, Translation on February 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »

815

SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-Crossing Waltz (2016).

Boris have put out (by my understanding) eight live albums.  As with most of their releases, they’re not all easy to find.  I happened to get this one because they were selling it at the show I was at (many of their releases seem to be only for sale at the merch table).  This one is from their own Fangs Anal Satan label.  It was released in 2016 but was recorded sometime around 2011.

It happens that this era is one that I know best (they put out three albums on the same day and they are all still available) so this is a fun live album for me since it’s fun to hear the distinctions and their ability to translate them in a live setting.

The disc opens with a two-minute intro–sirens from the opening of “Heavy Rocks 2011” which leads into “Riot Sugar.”  The song is heavy–it rocks out and is full of Atsuo’s whoops and yells–the sign of a real rocking song.  “8” is a song I didn’t know.  It starts with a lot of gong and has some great falsetto vocals.

“Statement” is great to hear live because it’s cool that they can play the songs just like on record.  Not that it sounds like the record exactly, but that they can recreate the music live–and keep it all catchy too.

Then things slow down for a few songs from Wata.  “Attention Please” is quiet and silky with cool guitar and effects.  I love the way Wata delivers the quiet, whispered lyrics.  It’s followed by “Party Boy.”  “Party Boy” appears on two records.  It’s hard to know which “version” this is but this one is slinky, dancey and heavy at the same time (we’ll say Attention Please, since there’s not much synth)..

“Flare” is from a 7″ and it is very heavy.  Then it’s back to Wata singing the really catchy “Spoon” with heavy drums.  The first disc ends with the 16 minute “Missing Pieces” (longer than the album by a few minutes).  Like a good epic, it starts slowly.  After three minutes Atsuo introduces a lot of drums and then the bass and guitar roar for about a minute.  It fades to near quiet once again.  There’s a minute or so of just vocals before the guitars come back, this time with soloing while Takeshi is singing.  Around six minutes in it turns to noise, noise, noise–both guitars on feedback and scraping and the drummer going bananas.  The band stops on a dime for complete silence and then takes off again–noise and more noise.  There’s feedback and gongs and more feedback.  And then at 11 and a half minutes the drums return–continuing through to the end.

Disc two opens with “Window Shopping” which is all about fuzz and buzz, full of Atsuo’s yeahs and a crazy wild solo at the end from Wata. 

Then they move back to some older albums for 2 songs.  “1970” comes from 2002’s Heavy Rocks album (the orange one).  It is full of bass rumble.  It leads to the classic “Pink” with gongs as the transition.  Even all of these years later, these songs are full of power.

“Alierion” is the longer version.  It starts slow and quiet and builds and builds, getting heavier for 12 or so minutes. The last minute is a solo piano melody, a dramatic departure for them.  Then the sirens come in again for “Looprider.”  “Looprider” is eight catchy minutes of shoegazey fun.

The by now standard closing of “Farewell” ends the show.  Hearing those opening notes live was great and it is great here.  The song sounds terrific.

One of the things about Boris live is that their vocals are never clear.  Perhaps if you understand Japanese the vocals are more obvious, but it feels like they may be something of an afterthought, especially live. The band is all about the sonic experience and the vocals, the voice, is just another piece of that.

1.1 Intro  2:35
1.2 Riot Sugar — Heavy Rocks (2011)  4:53
1.3 8 — Japanese Heavy Rock Hits Vol 1 (2009) 4:03
1.4 Statement — Smile (2008)  3:49
1.5 Attention Please — Attention Please (2011)  6:34
1.6 Party Boy — New Album (2011)  3:55
1.7 Flare — Asobi Seksu x Boris 7″ (2012)  4:24
1.8 Spoon — Attention Please (2011)  4:57
1.9 Missing Pieces — Heavy Rocks (2011)  16:01
2.1 Window Shopping — Heavy Rocks (2011)  5:58
2.2 1970 — Heavy Rocks (2002)  5:03
2.3 Pink — Pink (2006)  4:52
2.4 Ailerion — Heavy Rocks (2011)  13:52
2.5 Looprider — New Album (2011)  8:18
2.6 Farewell — Pink (2006)  7:37

[READ: February 8, 2016] “Quaestio de Centauris”

I was sure that I had read or posted about stories from Primo Levi before 2016, but I see no evidence of it.

Perhaps I have never read him, just heard of him.  I don’t know if this story is anything like what he typically writes, but it was a pretty unexpected story topic (continuing with the theme of this issue, apparently).

The story was translated from the Italian by Jenny McPhee.  And, as one might decipher from the title, the story is about centaurs.

The narrator says that his father kept a centaur in the barn.  Although he admonished the boy not to bother it, the bot and the centaur, Trachi, became friends.  Trachi even allowed him to ride on his back from time to time. (more…)

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Jonathan Safran Foer–“Love is Blind and Deaf” (New Yorker, June 8 & 15, 2015)

Posted in Bible, Boris, Fables, Jonathan Safran Foer, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Nirvana, Short Story on February 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »

815

SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-Noise (2013).

You really never know what you’re going to get with Boris.  Most of the time, there are multiple editions of releases with different covers and different mixes.

In this case, despite the different covers of this record (see below), the track listing is exactly the same (except that the Japanese version came with a bonus disc).  Total length: 57:52

I like that this album cover parodies (sort of) Nirvana’s Bleach album cover.

“Melody” (黒猫メロディ) 6:40 The disc opens with some ringing alt-rock wit a distorted rocking chorus.   Despite the cover, it’s not like Nirvana, it’s more soaring  there’s catchy backing oohs and a cool hi-hat flourish.

“Vanilla” 4:15 is heavy in the same vein as “Melody” and “Ghost of Romance” (あの人たち) 5:49  has slow guitars and soaring leads with a heavy solo.  “Heavy Rain” (雨) 6:12 starts quite slowly with vocals by Wata and then there’s a big crash and the heavy section follows.  It alternates between quiet and loud at intervals.

“Taiyo no Baka” (太陽のバカ) 3:36 is almost a pop metal sound with dancey vocals and woah hos.  There’s even a simple guitar riff that follows along.  At three and a half minutes it’s a pure pop gem.

“Angel” 18:42 Angel, on the other hand pushes 19 minutes and it’s an epic workout.  It begins with a pretty, quiet guitar riff interlaced with a second guitar and interesting percussion.  There’s slow vocals as well.  But after 6 minutes, a loud distorted guitar interrupts the pretty melody, but it’s only playing an intermittent chord.  Even the powerful drums blasts don’t change the overall tempo of the song until a minute later when it takes on a loud droning quality with harmony vocals and a distorted bass moments.  There’s a soaring guitar solo as well.  By around 10 minutes the song turns into an uptempo rocker with falsetto vocals!  The song seems to climax at 13 minutes with a big gong.  But there’s more.  The song turns into a kind of soaring instrumental with echoing guitars and thumping drums.  With two minutes left the song returns to that opening guitar riff with a tidy solo over the top.  It’s like the song is nicely bookended with itself.  It’s quite the centerpiece.

“Quicksilver” 9:51 Who know what another band might follow a 20 minute song with, but Boris chose a nearly 10 minute song.  It seems at first that “Quicksilver” is going to be a short blast with the super fast pummeling hardcore sound.  There’s screamed vocals and wild drumming but it’snot that simple.  At 3 and a half minutes, the song slows down some although it stays heavy.  By around the 5th minute there;s lou dbacking voclals to accompant the lead vocal.  Once again, a false climax comes at 7 minutes but there’s more feedback to come along with a quiet, pretty guitar outro.  Until the final two minutes when there are loud droning chords that play through to the end.

“Siesta” (シエスタ) 2:50 Siesta is the shortest song on the disc, an instrumental that is kind of pretty and kind of woozy at the same time.  It’s definitely a slow down from the erst of the album and a nice conclusion.

This was the first Boris album I bought and it’s still a favorite.

The Japanese edition (cover to the right) came with this bonus disc, which I’ve not heard.

CD 2 (Another Noise) Total length: 23:26
1. “Bit” 9:35
2. “Kimi no Yukue” (君の行方) 4:51
3. “Yuushikai Revue” (有視界 Revue) 3:32
4. “Discharge” (ディスチャージ) 5:32

[READ: July 23, 2015] “Love is Blind and Deaf”

This was the 2015 New Yorker fiction issue.  It featured several stories and several one-page essays from writers I like.

In addition to those essays on Time-Travel it also included this short piece from Safran Foer.  I hadn’t seen much from Safran Foer recently, so I was interested to read this (very) short story.  It’s all of one page.

Much as Zadie Smith’s story about celebrities was unexpected, so was this one (on the following page in the magazine no less) about Adam & Eve.

We learn that Adam was blind and so never had to see Eve’s hideous birthmark.  And that Eve was deaf and never had to listen to Adam’s whiny narcissism.  And then they ate the apples and knew everything.  (more…)

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Zadie Smith–“Escape from New York” (New Yorker, June 8 & 15, 2015)

Posted in Boris, Huh?, Humiliation, Marlon Brando, Michael Jackson, Natural Disasters, New Yorker, Short Story, Zadie Smith on February 23, 2018| Leave a Comment »

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SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-Attention Please (2011).

Attention Please marks a departure from the Heavy Rocks sound, returning to the dream pop sound explored on New Album, but this time, it has elements of noise pop and alternative rock. It features Wata’s vocals on every track.

Attention Please shares the songs “Hope,” “Party Boy” and “Spoon” with New Album
Attention Please shares the tracks “Aileron” with Heavy Rocks, although it is radially different.
New Album shares the tracks “Jackson Head” and “Tu, La La” with Heavy Rocks.

“Attention Please” 5:12 has a pulsing bass and gentle drums that lie under Wata’s whispered sensuous vocals.

“Hope” 3:26 Sounds a lot like the version on New Album, although the synths have been replaced by strings and the sound effects are removed.  This song feels more organic but still slick and catchy.

“Party Boy” 3:50 The thumping bass drum and a really buzzy bass give this version a very different sound.  There’s almost no synth although the vocals sound pretty much the same.  There’s a lot of strange effects that reward headphone listening–when Wata whispers in your ear it might even make you turn your head.  Although the song is basically the same, the New Album version is definitely catchier.

“See You Next Week” 3:56 has warping synth sounds that push the song forward as Wata’s whispered vocals come in.  The speed of the “percussion” is contrary to the gentle echoing vocals.  “Tokyo Wonder Land” 5:42 opens with repeated, high-pitched Huh huh huh and super distorted wild guitar riffs.

On “You” 6:13, it sounds like she’s singing “anatomy” quietly at a whisper (which she obviously isn’t).  It’s a slow, smooth song that meanders beautifully.

“Aileron” at 2:01, this is a much abbreviated version from the one on Heavy Rocks.  This one is all acoustic with some pretty guitar soloing going underneath the lovely melody.  The melody is the same but the whole song is very different.

“Les Paul Custom ‘86” 2:09 has whispered vocals from Wata and the men.  There’s guitar washes and a sense of menace but mostly it’s kind of tinny and effects-filled.  Its one of the few songs where understanding the words might actually help.

“Spoon” 4:16 For this version, there;s no keyboard notes, just heavy guitar.  But that whole shoegaze vibe from Wata’s vocals remains. The only real nod to the other version is the sound of breaking glass at the end of select verses.

“Hand in Hand” 4:30 is quiet and pretty with the tinny guitar and Wata’s gentle soaring vocals.

Between these three discs you get a pretty complete picture of the music of Boris–largely heavy,but always guitar based.  They really show off their diversity with this trio.

[READ: July 22, 2015] “Escape from New York”

This was the 2015 New Yorker fiction issue.  It featured several stories and several one-page essays from writers I like.

In addition to those essays on Time-Travel it also included this short piece from Zadie Smith.

This story is quite the peculiar one from Smith.  It eschews just about everything I think she writes about and focuses on a very unexpected subject.

There is a catastrophe in New York (presumably 9/11 although it could be a fictional disaster).  Lead character Michael is trying to coordinate an escape for his friends Elizabeth and Marlon.  Now, the accompanying photo was a clue, and anyone with any familiarity with celebrities should recognize those names.  I wasn’t sure if it was a coincidence; I assumed it must be. (more…)

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László Krasznahorkai—”Chasing Waterfalls” (Harper’s, November 2017)

Posted in Alvvays, Canadian Music, Harper's, Huh?, John Batki, László Krasznahorkai, Lou Reed, Nap Eyes, Short Story, The Velvet Underground, Translation, Waterfalls on February 17, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NAP EYES-Whine of the Mystic (2015).

Nap Eyes opened for Alvvays and although we only caught half of their set, I really enjoyed it.  Lead singer Nigel Chapman, had a kind of deadpan Lou Reed spoken delivery (with an extra affectation–perhaps something to do with being from Halifax?).  The drums were thumping and spare and the guitar played a mixture of pretty melodies and squalling feedback.

The songs are pretty minimal musically.   Bassist Josh Salter and drummer Seamus Dalton keep the rhythm steady with occasional grace notes from Salter.  It’s really the work of guitarist Brad Loughead that stands out–in addition to Chapman’s lyrics of course.

A comment on the lyrics from the bandcamp site:

Throughout the record, workaday details punctuate (and puncture) cosmic concerns, as Nigel wrestles with air and angels, struggling (and often failing) to reconcile the Romantic rifts, both real and imagined, that define our lives: between chaos and order (or wilderness and paradise, as in “Tribal Thoughts”); solipsism and fellowship (“Dreaming Solo” vs. “Oh My Friends”); the anxiety of social (dis)orders both big and small (“The Night of the First Show”; “No Man Needs to Care”); and the various intersections and oppositions of religion, art, and science (“Dark Creedence” and “Make Something.”) 

This first album (after several EPs with great song titles) pretty much plays that template right out of the gate–the guitars do squall with feedback,but it is kind of low on the mix–disturbing the silence but not overwhelming it.

“Dark Credence” is pretty much the same thing repeated for four minutes but the way it builds with more intense drumming and ever noisier guitar feedback is great.  “Make Something” is a slower song that adds some interesting lead guitar notes as the song nears its end.

“Tribal Thoughts” is the first song that really stands out.  It’s faster paced, with a spirited, plucked melody.  Chapman is a bit more emotive and by the end the lead guitar has really taken off.  There’s some interesting lyrics in this song too, imagine singing slowly in deadpan: “I hear the beat against the slow lines / The lines i wrote / I never write them down anymore / fuck iiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttt

“Delirium and Persecution Paranoia” is a 7 minute drone of a song that really doesn’t change much.  It makes you focus on the impenetrable words:

Round the inner core rocks / the outer core flows / but while the outer core cools / the inner core grows / the loaded sun sends out heat and light and deadly magnetic radiation  /  What you gonna do / the human race / when the solar wind through the magnetosphere is breaking  / Most of us down here lying down for years / sleeping the night away / some of us try but never survive /  stay up whole night and day  //  My friend once told me about a rare insomniac’s condition / sleeps not one minute a day but feels 20 minutes of pain and blurry vision.

And I just love the amusingly desperate end:

Oh baby, all I need is another second chance
Oh baby, all I need is another twenty-five second chance
Oh baby, all I need is another two-hundred and fifty-second chance
Oh baby, all I need is another two-hundred and fifty thousand second chance

“No Man Needs to Care” is a faster song with a nice circular guitar riff.  What does no man need to care about? “No man needs to care about another man’s hair.”

“Dreaming Solo” slows things down again, and then there’s two shorter somewhat poppier (but still angsty) songs.  “The Night of the First Show” is a delightful dark (lyrically) but perky (musically) take about what I gather was the first Nap Eyes show.  “Oh My Friends” is another slow, short song.  The short ones are so different from the droning quality of the longer ones.  Like the album closer “No Fear of Hellfire,” another 7-minute song.  It opens with ringing guitars and propulsive bass.  “Sunday morning only comes around once, these days.”  And the chorus: No feel of hellfire makes me feel good.”

[READ: November 15, 2017] “Chasing Waterfalls”

This is the second story I’ve read by Krasznahorkai (this Hungarian story was translated by John Batki).

Of his previous story I wrote:

This is the kind of story that makes me wonder why someone would write about the things they do.  Not because it’s bad or not worth writing about, I just can’t imagine where the idea came from.

This was a challenging story for me to read because there are no paragraph breaks (and I love my paragraph breaks).  It is just an endless stream of prose.

This one isn’t quite as out-of-thin-air, but it’s a pretty peculiar story nonetheless. (more…)

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Rafil Kroll-Zaidi–“Bad Dog” (Harper’s, November 2017)

Posted in Death, Dogs, Harper's, Nick Hakim, Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on February 16, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NICK HAKIM-Tiny Desk Concert #706 (February 14, 2018).

I thought the name Nick Hakim sounded familiar, but I had forgotten it was from an NPR SXSW Lullaby in which Hakim was draped in fairy lights.

In this Tiny Desk, his music seems much more jazzy.  He has an abundance of instruments, as well.  Two guitars (him and a lead guitarist) and a keyboardist who also has a piano at hand.  It lends itself to a lot of different sounds.

“Cuffed” has a slinky bass line and I like that the lead guitar makes a sound like rim shots almost.  I really enjoyed that the same guitar later plays a muted guitar solo.  Even the keyboard solo is a little trippy and wobbly.

As the blurb says, the music of Nick Hakim occupies a space and time that is faintly out of this world. The guitars and machinery that make up his music feel slightly askew, as though someone slowed down the tape machine every once in a while. His raspy voice feels drenched in a cavernous space.

Hakim’s songs seem very personal (“exploring the quietude of inner thoughts”), like this couplet:

she taught me to make love with patience not just thinking about myself/
to really feel the other person, oh my love, what would I do without you

“Needy Bees” slows things down to piano and a jazzy guitar with mellow lyrics like “let me live inside of your mind.”  And as the blurb notes, the music feels warm and spacious.  Again weird and wobbly guitar solo comes out of the middle of the song.

I find the way he sings “Roller Skates” to be comically restrained.  I imagine it could come across as really passionate but it seems odd the way he holds back some of his opening vocal sounds.   The sprinkling piano and cool bass breakdown in the middle of the song are terrific.

I didn’t like him at first but by the end I was getting into it.

[READ: November 15, 2017] “Bad Dog”

Not only does the dog die in this story, it is horrifically killed.

I gave away that ending, something I am loathe to do.  But you can probably  thank me for not having to read that particular piece of horror.

Having gotten that out of the way, I have to admit that this story was really compelling and craftily written.

At first I wasn’t so sure what was going on.  A lot of names are tossed out with little context.  But it soon becomes apparent that the narrator’s daughter Abby (now 31) and her husband Tim own a dog which they adopted from Tim’s friend who was moving.  They adopted it because they assumed they would not be having children.  But now they do.  A girl named Rose. (more…)

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David Means–“Fistfight, Sacramento, August 1950” (Harper’s, October 2017)

Posted in David Means, Drinking, Harper's, Old West, Romance, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Yuck! on February 13, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 SOUNDTRACK: THE CROSSRHODES-Tiny Desk Concert #704 (February 9, 2018).

Who knew there was explicitly Christian rap?  I mean, obviously there must be. But I never expected to hear it, especially not Christian songs that used the n-word and the f-word.

I’d never heard of The Crossrhodes, so here’s what the blurb says

Witnessing The Crossrhodes perform at the Tiny Desk instantly snapped me back to their early beginnings, just a few miles away from NPR headquarters. In 2001… the Crossrhodes stepped on stage. Week after week, the band passionately performed original material that jumped between society’s woes and their own love lives. Word eventually spread outside of the D.C. area and one-half of the group, Raheem DeVaughn, landed a record deal.

DeVaughn went on to achieve R&B superstardom, earning two Grammy nominations, while the other half of the group, Wes Felton, has remained a pillar of D.C. culture, excelling as both a musician and actor. They reunited and released their first album in over a decade last year. Footprints on the Moon recapitulates and magnifies the ideals they conveyed in the early 2000s with a hyper-focused sense of urgency.

Poet, Raquel Ra Brown opened the show with a poem.  After her introduction, and they were the band is dressed, I expected to hear more of a gospel sound, not for him to start out by going “yo, unh.”

“Footprints on the Moon” seems to be inspirational, but what’s with this lyric:

They lyin’ bout them there two white feet
That landed on the moon a year after they killed King

And again, the songs are fairly pious and you get this couplet:

The only topic of discussion is who they touchin’
Or who they buyin’ or who they fu**in’

Sure there’s politic on the song, but where is this music going?

“How You Gon’ Fall” has a pretty great chorus but the verses are again, pretty rough

cops shot 30 rounds in 15 seconds
4 month old baby in the rear section
another mother gotta call the reverend
a dead daughter, sister, veteran
now the media posing all the questions
slandering the victim pointing out aggression
somehow the angel of god kept the baby protected
coz grandma prayed beyond the pictures and necklace

The tautology of “Praying Prayers” is surprisingly catchy .  It’s probably my favorite song of the bunch

“America” has some well thought out complaints about the country, and it ends with the last few bars of the National Anthem.  I like that they took a knee during that part.

As the show ends, he gets everyone to chant, “I got the power, you got the power, we got the power; that’s power to the people.”

Overall, there was some good stuff in this set. Not my thing but I can certainly appreciate most of it.

[READ: September 21, 2017] “Fistfight, Sacramento, August 1950”

So the crux of this story is that a fist fight between two men brings a man and a woman together.

How delightful.

The story is written in a thoughtful manner, but it is still just about two dumb drunks fighting.

Inexplicably, James Sutter, in a bar, leans over and says–as if to no one–I hate Okies. Frannie Begara challenges him to a fight outside.

So they go out in the dark (the streetlight frames their ring).  Each man has his fan base ringing behind him. (more…)

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Jesse Eisenberg-“Why I Broke Up with the Little Mermaid” (New Yorker, February 12, 2016)

Posted in Funny (ha ha), Jesse Eisenberg, King's X, Kings of Spade, Mermaids, New Yorker, Short Story, The Little Mermaid on February 11, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KINGS OF SPADE-Kings of Spade (2014).

This follow up to Kings of Spade’s debut album.  They describe it as

High energy, shameless dancing, foot-stomping Rock’n’Roll! Dedicated to all the freaks, queers, strange birds, rule breakers and all who dare to be different.

That’s pretty accurate.  The band seems to have really found their groove.  There’s fewer experiments but the ones they employ are solid and the whole album is pretty great from start to finish.

“This Child” opens with a cool echoing riff and  big power chords as Kasi Nunes sings the catchy chorus:

yes you buy me dresses
but i play with guns
swing for the fences
aint gonna tame this child

There’s some interesting electronic sounds swirling around but they are more for texture than actual song creation.  “San Antonie” is a classic-rock-sounding/blues riffing song.  It’s funny to think of someone from Hawaii singing about taking a train to San Antoine.

“Bottoms Up” is a heavier riff-based song with echoed vocals. Kasi’s delivery is a bit more rap-like but nothing as deliberate as on the previous album.  And she still wails.  The song includes scratch artistry by DJ PACKO.  As with the other songs, there’s a really scorching guitar solo from Jessie Savio.

“Sweet” is a slower song with kind of sultry vocals from Kasi.  “Lost” returns to that power-blues style but the second half of the song gets into a really fast riffing–it’s practically a second song.

“Take Me” is a nearly 7 minute workout.  It’s almost a disco bass line from Tim Corker but then around four minutes it slows down into a kind of bluesy solo section with Kasi really showing off her vocal chops.  “Way She Goes’ is a great song–a story song about Kasi trying to pick someone up.  But it’s the distorted falsetto of the chorus that really hooks the song–that and the terrific riff in the chorus.  Half way through the song slows down to a kind of reggae vibe–just keeping things interesting.

“Ronda Rousey” is dedicated to the fighter.  The night I saw them live Ronda was playing the next night (she lost).  Regardless of Rousey herself, this song kicks major ass.  It’s heavy and stomping and the chorus is awesome:

now you’re here cross my corner and i warned ya
and im giving you the fight of my life
no escape from what your feelin
i got an itch to get inside
come on let’s get it on

The way it shifts gear during the repeating of “come on, let’s go it on” is pretty cool.

“Strange Bird” is their best song and one of my favorite songs in recent times.  The opening riff–guitar and bass) is pretty simple but it works and when the song pulls back to let Kasi sing her pre-chours (which is terrific) and then leads to the powerful chorus, it’s all a perfectly executed rock song.

Even if the chorus of “rocking to the beat of my own drum” is not original, it works, and that pre-chorus is pure Kasi with her pink mohawk:

strange bird how many colors in your hair
how many people love to stare
strange bird here comes another .

There’s some great drums work on this song by Matt Kato.

It feels like the album should end with that song, it’s such a great climax.  But the final song, “Mess of Me” is no slouch.  It’s a pretty classic blues rocker with some great guitar and Kasi’s soaring vocals.  I would have put it before “Strange Bird,” myself, but it’s still a rocking song.

It’s been almost four years since they put this record out.  I know they’ve been touring the world with King’s X for a pretty long time.  I hope they keep up the great work.

[READ: January 25, 2017] “Why I Broke Up with the Little Mermaid”

Sometimes a very simple premise can be taken too far.  Other times, a simple premise can be cleverly stretched out into variations of the same joke that are all very funny.

This piece is pretty much all stated in the title.  But the reasons why are presented as a dialogue between him and Ariel  . And, the best part is that much of Ariel’s dialogue is quoted from the movie.

So:

Ariel: Look at this stuff! Isn’t it neat?

Me: Not really. What is it?

Ariel: They’re whozamawhats, silly! I got them from a yard sale. (more…)

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Toni Morrison–“Sweetness” (New Yorker, February 9, 2015)

Posted in Hurray for the Riff Raff, New Yorker, Parenting, Racism, Regrets, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Toni Morrison, Waxahatchee on February 9, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF-Tiny Desk Concert #702 (February 5, 2018).

I first heard of Hurray for the Riff Raff from their previous album (the song “The Body Electric”).  I loved Segarra’s voice and the politics behind the song.  I could hear that she was a proud woman, but I had no idea that she was a proud Puerto Rican as well.  I learned about that aspect of her music when they played Newport Folk Festival.

Alynda Segarra’s unamplifed voice in this Tiny Desk performance had no problem rising above the drums, congas, cello, violin, bass, keyboards, and an electric guitar. The passion for her Puerto Rican roots feels boundless. As Soul Captain for Hurray for the Riff Raff, she and her band weave tales of man’s inhumanity to fellow humans, often from bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.

“Rican Beach” adds a lot more Latinx accents to the music–between the congas and other percussion from Juan-Carlos Chaurand and the riffs and, of course, Segarra’s lyrics, this is a much more culturally aware album without removing any of the folk/rock that the band is built on.

First they stole our language
Then they stole our names
Then they stole the things that brought us faith
And they stole our neighbors
And they stole our streets
And they left us to die on Rican Beach

“Pa’lante,” is such a wonderful mix of the Hispanic and Americana.  Singing in Spanish to Juan and Miguel the song includes a more traditional American folk style with piano (Sarah Goldstone), violin (Claudia Chopek), cello (Patricia Santos) and even a guitar solo (Jordan Hyde).  Introducing the song, she says, “There’s a lot of people trying to hold us back but we have a whole generation of children counting on us to change the world.  And I believe in us.”

The song “Pa’lante,” one of the most articulate songs of a generation, speaks of being colonized and hypnotized, sterilized and dehumanized, with the refrain, “pa’lante” which translates as “forward.”  To continue the fight to freedom and respect:

“To all who lost their pride, I say, Pa’lante!
To all who had to survive, I say, Pa’lante!
To my brothers, and my sisters, I say, Pa’lante!”

But before that empowering end, the opening lyrics speak to the everyday that we all want:  Over  a simple piano melody, she sings:

Oh I just wanna go to work / And get back home, and be something
I just wanna fall and lie / And do my time, and be something
Well I just wanna prove my worth / On the planet Earth, and be, something
I just wanna fall in love / Not fuck it up, and feel something

And then more specifically:

Colonized, and hypnotized, be something
Sterilized, dehumanized, be something
Well take your pay / And stay out the way, be something
Ah do your best / But fuck the rest, be something

After four verses the song shifts gear entirely.  There’s some louder chords and then it moves on to a an almost chamber-pop style with some prominent snare drum Charlie Ferguson.  The end of the song, with her singing “P’alante” it’s catchy and inspiring at the same time.

For “Nothing’s Gonna Change That Girl” Segarra picks up a guitar.  It’s a slower more traditional folk song with full string accompaniment.  There’s quiet backing vocals and delicate yet pronounced bass from Justin Kimmel and some fun percussion before the ending refrain “before you love me like this, oh yeah, love me like this.”

I have tickets to see them and Waxahatchee this spring, it should be a great double bill.

[READ: July 22, 2016] “Sweetness”

I haven’t read very much by Toni Morrison.  I have always intended to but just never did.

So this might be the first thing I’ve read by her.  And man, does it pack a lot into the few pages of it.

The story begins with a woman saying, “It’s not my fault. So you can’t blame me.”  And then she reveals that what’s not her fault is the color of the skin of her baby.  The woman–the mother–is a light-skinned black woman with “good” hair, “what we call high yellow.”  So was the girl’s father.  So how could the baby have come out so dark-blue black?  She was embarrassed as soon as the baby was born.

She talks about her family’s past–how her own mother was light-skinned and could have passed but chose not to.  She told the price she paid for that decision–colored water fountains and, even more offensive: a colored Bible. (more…)

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Alex Pugsley–“Wheelers” (The Walrus, January/February 2018)

Posted in Alex Pugsley, Canadian Content, Excerpt, Marriage Trouble, Metallica, Parenting, Rheostatics, Short Story, Slayer, The Walrus on February 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RODRIGO Y GABRIELA-Live in France (2009).

Nothing can prepare you for a Rod y Gab concert, but listening to a live album can give you some idea of the aural pyrotechnics you’re in for.

To say it is “just ” two guitarists playing acoustic guitar, gives you a very specific picture.  If you say that they are amazing at soloing on their instruments, it gives you another picture.  Neither of which is correct.

Rodrigo plays an incredible fast lead guitar while Gabriela plays the most dynamic percussive rhythm I’ve ever seem (or heard) on her hollow bodied guitar.   When listening live, if Gabriela is not playing the rhythmic style, it’s impossible to know who is playing what,

These songs are not just virtuoso show-off pieces. They have terrific melodies that run through them.  The songs are instantly recognizable as Rod y Gab songs, but you also recognize the individual melodies too (although I’ll be damned if I can keep the names of the songs straight in any way).

If I had a complaint, which isn’t really a complaint, it’s that you can never tell when the songs actually end. They often pause mid-song and then resume after ten to 30 seconds.  Some songs could be 3 minutes but end up nearly 6.  It doesn’t really matter because the songs are great and could all be one long song because it’s terrific, it’s just a little hard to keep track sometimes.

For this CD, they play 7 of 11 tracks from 11:11 and 1 from their self-titled album.

“Hanuman” opens the disc.  After a few minutes, the song builds and Rod plays faster and louder chords and then it all drops away.  When the riff comes back in, that’s pretty awesome.  “Triveni” beings with some really heavy riffing from both of them.  “Chac Mool” is the one major exception to everything else on the disc  It’s one minute long and is  very mellow and quite pretty.  Nothing fancy, just a a nice melody.

“Hora Zero” has a few moments where Rod plays some really fast arpegiaos and the consistency of his playing is remarkable. (There’s also some wah wah on this song which always comes as a surprise).  This is one of those songs that feels like it ends after four minutes, but it still has two minutes to go.  It ends with a nod to Metallica with the ending chords.

“Gabriela Solo” and “Rodrigo Solo” are, as they say, opportunities for us to marvel at their individual skills.  Gab does a lot of percussive stuff, but also shows her chops on the strings.  Rod’s solo throws in a lot of recognizable heavy metal riffs in between his beautiful Spanish guitar playing: three from Metallica and one from Slayer.

“Santo Domingo” is one of my favorite songs.  I love the riff that is in a different time signature at the end of each “verse.”  There’s some wonderful percussion from Gab. I really dig the bass sound and heavy riffing that he (or maybe she) gets out of the guitar in the middle of  “Buster Voodoo.”

“11:11” features a very pretty, mellow echoing lead section, its kind of trippy rather than frenetic, and there’s some cool tricks that Rod pulls off that sound fantastic.  “Savitri” has some more great riffs and some cool percussive playing from Gab–it turns into a pretty fast and furious song.

“Tamacun” is from their self titled album and it elicits the biggest response, with Rod teasing out the riff and the audience singing along (to an instrumental).  The end is great with some terrific percussion from Gab as Rod wails away.

This does not compare to actually seeing them, but it’s a terrific performance nonetheless.

[READ: January 22, 2018] “Wheelers”

This rather long story seemed to be one thing and then turned into something else entirely.  As if maybe this is an excerpt from a novel rather than a short story (which I see now that it is).

The story begins with a boy talking about his family–his mother’s maiden name is Wheeler.

He grew up in a house with four sisters.  They were loud and demanding.  He tried to ride a wave between them, allowing hair braiding and the like, but they often turned on him: “You know when you mooned me and Faith? We saw your balls and they looked shrimpy.”

The girls’ were nicknames Itsy, Bitsy, Titsy and Ditsy (the dad changed Titsy to Mitsy, wisely). (more…)

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Jhumpa Lahiri–”The Boundary” (New Yorker, January 29, 2018)

Posted in Conor Oberst, Jhumpa Lahiri, New Yorker, Racism, Short Story, Translation, Travel, Vacation, Violence on January 31, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FIRST AID KIT-Stay Gold (2014).

This album was also produced by Mike Mogis, who did The Lion’s Roar.  And with each new album, the “duo” of Klara and Johanna Söderberg grows bigger and bigger.  This album adds a full string section as well as a mellotron, vibraphone and lap dulcimer (these last three all thanks to Mogis.

“My Silver Lining” is an incredibly catchy, swinging song.  In addition to the cool strings and the lovely oooh melody, it’s that big bold “Woah oh” that really sells the song.  I also love the whispered vocals at the end the “try to keep on keeping on” is really cool and a very different sound for them.

“Master Pretender” has some interesting instrumentation–a bass clarinet in the first verse, fiddles and pedal steel in the second verse and striking lap dulcimer in the chorus.  It’s also the first instance of them cursing I think, “I always thought that you’d be here / But shit gets fucked up and people just disappear.”

“Stay Gold” a beautiful chorus sets this song apart, the melody is really great.  “Cedar Lane” is a slower song that focuses on the sisters’ harmonies in the beginning but the chorus inspires with those soaring falsetto notes.  But the biggest and best surprise of this song comes nearly 4 minutes in when the song shifts to an intense refrain of “how could I break away from you?”

“Shattered & Hollow” is a slower, more mellow song with an interesting percussion.  “The Bell” has some unexpected melody lines but soaring vocals, but it all coalesces wonderfully in the last minute “Can you hear the bell?” in great harmony.

“Waitress Song” is so wonderfully down to earth (if not depressing):

I could move to a small town / And become a waitress / Say my name was Stacy / And I was figuring things out / See, my baby, he left me / And I don’t feel like staying here tonight

I also love the way they sing this line in the folky style of the song despite referencing a very different type of song:

I remember the music / From the down stair’s bar: Girls, they just want to have fun

The way the ending of this song redeems itself with the cool lap steel and their ooohs as well as an uplifting ending makes this a surprisingly powerful track:

I could drive out to the ocean / And just stare in awe / I could walk across the beaches / And sleep under the stars / Our love would seem trivial and obscure / Now and never feel lost anymore

“Fleeting One” This song moves along really nicely with some amazing high notes in harmony.  “Heaven Knows” is their by-now familiar autoharp song.  Except that it also combines the rocking elements of the previous albums’ “King of the World” a shuffling guitar, stomping drums and great good fun. And while the last album had them shout FIRE! in the middle of Conor Oberst’s verse, this time they up the ante further by slowing things down and sing

Tell me what’s your story / do you think it’ll ever sell / and what’ll you do if it comes down to it / and it all goes…. STRAIGHT TO HELL!

“A Long Time Ago” ends the album as a dramatic piano ballad.  It sounds really quite different for them.

So this album builds on everything they’ve been working on, adding more and more sounds and getting their voices to sound somehow even better.

[READ: January 30, 2018] “The Boundary”

This story is from the point of view of a young girl whose family looks after a small cottage.  The cottage is in the Italian countryside.  Her family is not Italian (they are from very far away), and when they moved to Italy they first lived in the city.  The countryside is about as alien to them as they can imagine  And they don’t especially like it.

Every Saturday a new family comes to stay in the cottage.  And those people love the countryside, can’t stop talking about how great it is.

The girl who looks after the cottage is familiar with the routine.

There’s usually four of them–two parents two kids. The girl shows them around, shows them the mouse poison and tells them to kill the flies at night because their buzzing will wake them up in the morning.

As the guests settle in, she pretends to ignore them, but she always watches–especially when they leave the screen doors open.  Since the cottage is so close, she can hear everything the family says. (more…)

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