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Archive for the ‘Smarty Pants’ Category

Gene Luen Yang & Mike Holmes–Secret Coders: Paths and Portals (2016)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Children's Books, Constellation Records, First Second :01, Fly Pan Am, Gene Luen Yang, Graphic Novel, Mike Holmes, Robot Turtles, Robots, Sandro Perri, Science, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Technology, Unfinished series on October 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »

secret-2SOUNDTRACK: SANDRO PERRI-Spaced Out EP [CST101] (2013).

cst101cover_258x242Sandro Perri, plays jazzy music and sings in a gentle falsetto. I really enjoyed his album Impossible Spaces a lot.  This 10″ EP is composed  of 3 remixes from that album.  I happen to really dislike remixes that basically take one aspect of a song, add drums to it and repeat for 5 minutes.  Most dance remixes are pretty inane.  These are a step above that.

The three tracks are Love & Light (Larry Gus – Panamix), Wolfman (Le Révélateur – Sky Mix), and How Will I? (Imugem Orihasam – Outlook Mix).

The original of Love and Life is a pretty, jazzy number with some great sounding drums and synth notes.

The remix opens with some really fast clicking and some cool wild bass synth.  Then Perri’s voice is manipulated into a kind of repeating note.  Once the song starts properly there’s a cool drums beat and repeats of Perri singing “hey” along with his voice played low in the mix.  And that’s Brett much it.  It’s simple but insanely catchy/dancey.  The song pauses in the middle and then resumes with new vocal snippets The Constellation site says the remix “employs over 500 samples extracted from the song’s stems. The result is an intricate, dense, exuberantly satisfying groove-based track that chops and channels the woozy rhythmic complexity and mellifluous vocal of the original.”

“Wolfman” is a ten minute track that I love–it has so many components and different styles. But this remix strips away pretty much all of it.  It is basically 5 and a half minutes of drums with some wavering synth lines.  About 3 minutes in some ooh oohs from the original track come in, but it’s so removed from the track that I almost wonder why bother.  Well, Constellation is there to tell us: Roger Tellier-Craig (Fly Pan Am, Pas Chic Chic), reworks “Wolfman” as a beautifully building swarm of layered loops and long delays – an homage of sorts to Perri’s own Polmo Polpo sound palette.”  And if that’s what you are expecting, he does it well.

I also love the original of “How Will I.”  This version is very strange.  The music is stripped almost all away with just some occasional sprinkling of piano and rumblings of low notes in the background.  There are additions of synths and percussion but otherwise it is largely a stripped down song.  What I loved about the original was the music—the flutes and everything–and it’s all gone.  I do love at 7 minutes when the bass rumbles through the song, but otherwise its pretty samey.  Constellation tells us: “Japanese producer Imugem Orihasam (Fragil) extrapolates a sweet and loose abstract-House vibe from the original, bringing the highly detailed swing of the song’s live drum tracks to the fore, allowing Perri’s vocal to unfurl against a minimal, skittering, plunderphonic arrangement.”

So, this is not a release I would play very much.

[READ: October 3, 2016] Secret Coders: Paths and Portals

Secret Coders ended with a  pretty big cliffhanger.

Hopper and Eni are on to something big at their school, Stately Academy.  They have just discovered a robot which (through their own programming) has opened up a portal to a secret underground lab. But it is the lab of Mr Bee.  Oh, and that bully Josh has decided he wants to help them.  Hopper says no way, but Josh doesn’t give up.  However, he’s kind of a coward and a little dumb and Hopper is really quite mean to him back.

Eventually they all start working together–Josh has mad typing skills.  And the beginning of the book shows the trio learning to write a program for the Robot Turtle to run. Coding isn’t a terribly exciting thing to watch, but Yang and Holmes do it in a cool way that makes it rather enjoyable.  Even (or maybe especially) when the kids screw up.

But they do succeed.  Which leads to an even more secret room with dozens of robot turtles off all sizes  And that’s when Mr Bee reveals a bit about himself and Stately Academy. (more…)

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Gene Luen Yang & Mike Holmes–Secret Coders (2015)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Children's Books, Clues, Constellation Records, First Second :01, Gene Luen Yang, Graphic Novel, Mike Holmes, Robot Turtles, Robots, Science, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Technology, Unfinished series on October 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »

secretSOUNDTRACK: CLUES-Endless Forever 7″ [CST064] (2009).

  cluesClues was a band who played rock songs that fused a lot of different styles–often within one song.  They released one album which was fantastic and then basically went on hiatus (that was six years ago).  This 7″ was a tour artifact that Constellation has made available.

It has two songs–a band-made remix of one song from the album and a demo of another album track..

“Ledmonton (Endless Forever Version)” is an unusual but fun song with lots of different sections.  All of them sound unrelated to each other and yet each part is quite catchy and it works wonderfully as a whole.  This remix doesn’t change the song all that much.  It makes it a little softer and fuzzier.  “You Have My Eyes Now (Demonstration Version)” feels like a demo compared to the final version, but it’s really full sounding–just not as full as the album.

This release is more for completists of the band or, since they put out one album and disbanded, any fan of their recorded output might just enjoy this.

[READ: October 1, 2016] Secret Coders

Beloved artist/author Gene Luen Yang came back in 2015 with a new series called Secret Coders.

There is a kind of introductory section that implies the whole story is a lot more meta than it might at first seem–but it is not resolved yet so it’s hard to be sure of that.

The story opens on middle-schooler Hopper.  She is very unhappy to have moved to this new town and a new school.  In addition to missing everyone back home, the sh cool is decidedly weirdo.  There are birds with four eyes, the groundskeeper’s doors are locked and the custodian Mr Bee is really mean.   Plus the whole place looks haunted and there are huge numbers painted all over the buildings (but not in any actual order).

Hopper is pretty abrasive. In fact I’d say she’s downright unlikable–I find her rather offputting, myself.  Of course, she’s also unhappy and the first people that she meets make fun of her (and throw pudding at her), so she is quite snippy with people.  But she’s also not afraid to stand up for herself, which is cool.  When she learns who threw the pudding at her, she fights back–not realizing that the guy is a huge basketball player.  But he doesn’t fight her.  Rather, he chooses to walk away. (more…)

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E. L. Konigsburg–From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1968) [audiobook 1995–Jill Clayburgh]

Posted in Adventure, Art, Children's Books, E. L. Konigsburg, Funny (ha ha), Jill Clayburgh, Smarty Pants, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Travel, Word usage on December 26, 2015| Leave a Comment »

mixeduop[LISTENED TO: December 2015] From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler 

I was sure that I had read this book.  I have a copy of it and I knew the premise, but clearly, after listening to this audio book (at Sarah’s suggestion) I learned that I had not.  And the book was awesome.  All four of us enjoyed it a lot.

The story was great, but it may have had to do with Jill Clayburgh’s reading.  I don’t really know anything about her and at first I wasn’t convinced that two kids from suburban Connecticut would have such strong New York accents, but they really worked.  Especially when the kids started fighting and she had subtle distinctions between Claudia and Jaime.

Of course, the book itself is masterful.  But there’s some really unusual choices in the book, which made me wonder how good it would be.  It begins with a letter from Mrs Frankweiler to her lawyer, Saxonberg, (a rip-roaring intro to a kids book, eh?).  This introductory device sets up the story in which Mrs Frankweiler tells the story of Claudia and Kincaid’s adventures in New York City.  And it works wonderfully. (more…)

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Rainn Wilson–The Bassoon King: My Life in Art, Faith and Idiocy (2015)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Backstrom, Charity, Dungeons & Dragons, Elvis Costello, Funky Web Sites, Galaxy Quest, Hüsker Dü, Holiday Reinhorn, Julian Koster, Laurie Anderson, M*A*S*H, Marriage (Happy), Mindy Kaling, Parenting, R.E.M., Rainer Maria Rilke, Rainn Wilson, Religion, Saturday Night Live, School of Rock, Six Feet Under, Smarty Pants, Soul Pancake, Squeeze, Super, Talking Heads, The Clash, The Music Tapes, The Office, The Replacements, The Rocker, The Smiths, Theater, Tiny Desk Concert, Travel, Violence, Violent Femmes, X, XTC, Yuck! on December 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

basoonSOUNDTRACK: THE MUSIC TAPES-Tiny Desk Concert #182 (December 20, 2011).

musictaopesJulian Koster released an album in 2008 called The Singing Saw at Christmastime.  It was a complete CD of Christmas songs played on the saw.  That should tell you that Koster is an unusual fellow. But that doesn’t prepare you for what he unleashes during his Tiny Desk Concert with The Music Tapes.

Koster has a very high-pitched voice (I have a recording of him doing “I’ve Got My Love to Keep me Warm,” which is almost unbearable.  His singing is really close to the fine line of unique and bad (and I imagine for many it crosses the line). He’s also got a fascinating way of looking at things and of storytelling.  So this Tiny Desk show winds up being quite long (20 minutes) with quite a lot of different things going on.

First he tells a lengthy story about his great grandpa.  And how his great grandpa told him that baby trees can walk.  But they are tethered to the ground by an umbilical cord. And when we cut them down, we sever the cord.  And a Christmas tree is adorned and worshiped for two weeks and then set free to roam the earth.  It is a warm and strange and delightful.

Then he and a second member of the group play “The First Noel” on two saws.  It’s weird ad wonderful.  At the end of the song he has his saw bow, and Bob says he didn’t know a saw could bow.  Julian says they do and in fact that singing saws sing by themselves but we encourage them by petting them and placing them in our laps.

I don’t enjoy everything Koster does, so the second song “Freeing Song For Reindeer,” a banjo based piece about a tired old reindeer transporting Santa is slow and kind of sad and not my thing.

But then he tells a story of growing up with all kinds of culture and Holiday traditions which leads into a version of Gavin Bryars’ “Jesus Blood.”  I enjoy the original and didn’t know what to expect here.  They begin with a tape loop of an old man singing the song (possibly the one Bryars used, but I don’t know).  And then Koster starts playing the banjo with a bow.  And then a second guy does the same. Then the percussionist stars playing the toy piano and the noises build.  He switches from piano to trumpet and plays along.  Meanwhile the second banjo player switches back to the saw for the end. It’s really quite a lovely performance.

“Takeshi And Elijah” is another slow and keening banjo based song.  It’s pretty long, I don’t really like it, but by the end, as it builds with trumpet and toy piano, he ends the song sith a puppet Santa doing a tap dance as percussion.  It’s a great ending to an okay song.

The final song is “Zat You, Santa Claus?”  It’s played on bowed banjo and sousaphone.  It’s a fun and crazy rendition.   It’s one of the weirdest Tiny Desk shows and certainly the weirdest Christmas set.

[READ: December 5, 2015] The Bassoon King

I really liked Rain Wilson in The Office, but I haven’t seen him in much else (I forgot he was in Six Feet Under and Galaxy Quest) . I wanted to like Backstrom, but it got cancelled before we even watched an episode.

So why did I check out this memoir of an actor I like a little bit?  Well, primarily for the title.  The Bassoon King had an absurd ring that I really gravitated towards.  When I saw there was an introduction by Dwight Kurt Schrute, I knew this would be a good book.

The introduction (by Dwight) is very funny.  I love Dwight and I love thinking to myself “FALSE!” whenever I disagree with someone.  Dwight wondered why anyone would read a biography of a young semi-famous actor.  “Fact. NO. ONE. CARES.”  But then says he doesn’t care either because he is making a lot of dollars per word for this thing.

Rainn begins his memoir by making fun of his big head (especially when he was a baby).  It’s pretty funny.  And then he describes his hippie family and his weird name.  His mom changed her named from Patricia to Shay in 1965.  She wanted to name Rainn “Thucydides.”  But his dad always liked Rainer Maria Rilke.  Now, they lived pretty close to Mt Rainier, so they went for Rainn (“Tack an extra letter on there for no apparent reason”). (more…)

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Scott Feschuk–The Future and Why We Should Avoid It: Killer Robots, The Apocalypse and Other Topics of Mild Concern (2014)

Posted in Aliens, Alternative Medicine, Barack Obama, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Consumerism, Danny Michel, David Cross, Disease, Doctors, Drinking, Erich Korngold, Fears, Film & TV, Funny (ha ha), Hockey, Humiliation, John Southworth, Justin Trudeau, MacLean's, Martin Tielli, Natural Disasters, Political Humor, Propaganda, Ray Kurzweil, Sci-fi, Science, Scott Feschuk, Sex, Smarty Pants, Star Wars, Stephen Harper, Technology, The Art of Time Ensemble, The Future, Travel, TSA, Violence, Yuck! on November 23, 2015| Leave a Comment »

feschukSOUNDTRACK: THE ART OF TIME ENSEMBLE with MARTIN TIELLI–Korngold: Source & Inspiration (Enwave Theatre, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, ON, January 30, 2009).

aotimeAfter seeing The Art of Time Ensemble yesterday, it was quite serendipitous that I would have a show from them (featuring Martin Tielli) to post about on the following day.

This concert is the third in the Art of Time’s “Source & Inspiration” series. Two years earlier the first concert focused on composer Franz Schubert.  The previous year’s concert focused on Robert Schumann. This time the spotlight was on the 20th century Jewish composer Erich Korngold–a composer of European pedigree who became well known for his wonderful Hollywood film scores.

This concert featured Korngold’s Suite for Two Violins, Cello and Piano as the ‘source’ as well as new songs inspired by this work from Martin Tielli, Danny Michel and John Southworth.

This recording is only 8 minutes long because there’s only two Martin Tielli songs. “Lied Two” (the German word for song is lied (pronounced leed) so Martin called his “Lied Two.” And “Moglich” which translates into “possible.”  Both pieces are played with by the orchestra.  Martins sings.

The more dramatic of the two would be “Moglich” with his loud whispered “Relaxxxxx at the end.”  For more information about the show, you can click on this link.

Full Program & Repertoire:
Suite Op. 23 for 2 Violins, Cello and Piano Left-hand
Erich Korngold
i.Praeludium und Fuge
ii.Walzer
iii.Groteske
iv.Lied
v.Rondo-Finale
INTERMISSION
Athabasca
Adventures of Erich Korngold
—John Southworth
The Sailor Song
Island
—Danny Michel
Lied 2
Moglich
—Martin Tielli

Performers
Andrew Burashko, piano
Danny Michel, singer
Erika Raum, violin
Stephen Sitarski, violin
John Southworth, singer
Martin Tielli, singer
Winona Zelenka, cello

[READ: November 22, 2015] The Future and Why We Should Avoid It

The title of this book made me laugh so I set it aside to read it.  Little did I know that it would be so very funny that I put aside other things so I could finish it.

I hadn’t heard of Feschuk before.  He has written two previous books (How Not to Completely Suck as a New Parent sounds pretty good) and writes mostly for MacLean’s magazine.

As you might guess from the title, this book looks at the future, and Feschuk’s predictions are uncanny.  For instance, I brought the book home and decided to look at it in the bathroom.  And the introduction states quite clearly:

By now, life should be awesome and leisurely and you should be wearing a spacesuit and high-fiving your wisecracking robot sidekick.  Except instead your dishwasher is broken, your god-damn iTunes won’t sync up and right now you’re reading this book on a toilet in your bathroom instead of where you should be reading it–on a toilet in your hover car.

Too right, too right. (more…)

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Brendan Connell–Jottings from a Far Away Place (2015) [prepub]

Posted in マキシマム ザ ホルモン, Brendan Connell, Death Note, Food, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), John Zorn, Maximum the Hormone, Religion, Sex, Short Story, Smarty Pants, Supernatural, Surreal, Violence, Virginity (Loss of), Yamantaka Eye on November 16, 2015| 1 Comment »

jottingsSOUNDTRACK: マキシマム ザ ホルモン–“え・い・り・あ・ん” (2013) [MAXIMUM THE HORMONE-“A.L.I.E.N” (2013).

maxi2This Japanese band has gained some ground in the United States (having two of their songs used in the anime Death Note).  They are a heavy, heavy metal band which explores many different genres.

This song begins with a heavy metal guitar riff.  When the song proper starts, it is clearly a heavy song sing in Japanese.  The second vocalist (who screams like Yamantaka Eye with John Zorn) screams in an unmistakably Japanese way.  And at 1:15, the song slows down into a very heavy almost mosh.

So far so good.  The first big surprise comes at 1:44 when the song is hijacked by a funk metal bass line and the follow up section is a less scary sounding but still heavy metal.

And then it’s back to the speed and noise once more, complete with a pause and a “Go!” and then a series of “He!y Hey! Hey!” metal chants.

maxiBut the real surprise comes at 3 minutes when the whole song slows to a sweet section with whispered vocals by the (female) drummer?  And then the entire song switches to a sweet song–delicate guitar and super sweet vocals with the new lyrics “Stop Stop Winny Upload.”  The boys come back in, but now they are playing along to this poppy (but guitar heavy) “Stop Stop Winny” section.

This runs on until the end of the song which has the band members conversing in Japanese (about what, I have no idea).

It is one of the most jarring songs I’ve heard, combing at least five genres in its 5 and a half minutes (and several of their other songs do this too (check out “Yoshu Fukushu”).

maxi3This is to say nothing of the video, which opens with the band playing in a live setting.  The  guitarist has long hair and a beard and sings the first verses.  The short-haired singer sings the really fast growly stuff and the bassist has a nifty side shave.

As the funk metal stuff starts, the band switches to a studio scene in which, why not, they all grow extra heads and limbs.

The Stop Stop Winny section switches from a segment with the drummer in a wedding dress singing gently.  And then the final section shows the band in a psychedelic set with little kids and balloons.

It’s fantastic.

[READ: November 13, 2015] Jottings from a Far Away Place

Brendan Connell has this new book coming out (on December 1st) from the wonderfully named Snuggly Press.  (I love that it says This is a Snuggly Book) on the title page verso.

Connell has written all kinds of books in his career but this one is something of a new style in his vast oeuvre.  The title word “Jottings” is a giveaway because so many of the parts of the book are very short–notations, indeed, jottings, that may or may not relate directly to the rest of the pieces.  I found the book a little challenging to read at first because of this.  However, when I wrapped my head around what was going on, it really gelled.  And when I read it a second time, with this in mind, it worked beautifully.

Connell has created a kind of labyrinth of a book in which some fragments lead to dead ends, but other fragments lead to longer stories.  And when you hit on the right path you are rewarded with a longer story that is as well written (Connell’s eye for detail is, as always, exceptional) as it is interesting.  But unlike the mythological labyrinth, there is no Minotaur if you take a wrong path–rather there is just a fragment that forces you to think about where it might belong. (more…)

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Berkeley Breathed–Academia Waltz and other profound transgressions (2010)

Posted in Berkeley Breathed, Bloom County, Bob Dylan, Dave Bidini music, Doonesbury, Earl Campbell, Fantasy, Fears, Feminism, Football, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Gender, Gods, Greed, Guided By Voices, Humiliation, Kevin Hearn, LGBTQ, Martin Tielli, Nature, Neil Young, Political Humor, Punks, Racism, Religion, Rush, Scott Walker, Selina Martin, Set at School, Sex, Sexism, Smarty Pants, Star Trek on October 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »

academiaSOUNDTRACK: MARTIN TIELLI-“We didn’t even suspect that he was the poppy salesman.” (2001).

popptI wrote about this album once before, and while I made notes about it after listening to it again, I found out that they were pretty much exactly what I thought of the record four years ago.  So I’m going to simply repost the review here, but I’m going to add some new notes seamlessly intermingled.

Martin Tielli’s first solo disc is a proper solo release: it’s almost all him on acoustic guitar and his gorgeous alto voice.  I hadn’t listened to this disc in a while and I was delighted by how much of the disc I knew so well.

The opening track, “I’ll Never Tear Your Apart” is deceptively simple: beautiful harmonic’d guitars and his gentle voice.  There’s a great video to go with it here.  That is followed by the wonderful “My Sweet Relief” which sounds like a great Neil Young folk song: great verses an a strong chorus.  Lyrically, though, it is all Tielli.  “Double X” highlights Tielli’s beautiful acoustic guitar work.  It’s another great story song, this one about a destitute person hanging under a superstore with a K and an M.

“Voices in the Wilderness” is a simply beautiful song, a lovely guitar melody and Tielli’s high voice singing along.. I also love that the lyric  (mis)quotes Rush very nicely: “‘If you choose not to be free you still have made a choice,’ said a high and squeaky voice.”

“Farmer in the City” is the only track that Tielli didn’t write.  It’s a nearly 8-minute song by Scott Walker.  I had never listened to the original, but having now done so, I find the Walker version to be far superior.  Walker’s voice is so eccentric and wonderful.  So even though I love Martin’s voice, he just can’t compare to the original.   Also find Martin’s version to be just a little spare (the Walker version has lovely strings. Kevin Hearn plays celeste and Selina Martin plays wine glasses on the track.

It’s followed by the delightful “World in a Wall” which uses mice in the wall as a metaphor for a broken relationship (with wonderful detailed lines like: She’s like a mouse, I know she’s around It’s a gnawing sound. Leaves little brown poohs from a little pink bum.”

This is followed by “That’s How They Do It in Warsaw” which is the first really rocking song (it has bass and drums) and a voiceover in Polish by Kasia Zaton.

It’s coupled with a slightly less rocky but still loud track “How Can You Sleep?” (which makes another fun musical allusion, this time about Guided by Voices). It has a co-songwriting credit from Dave Bidini and has a kind of vocal allusion to Bob Dylan, although I doubt it is about him.

“She Said ‘We’re On Our Way Down’” is a song that I really want to enjoy more.  But It is so spare and Martin’s vocal line is so abstract, that I can never really get int it. But the guitar riff is really powerful and cool.  And yet, the song seems to eschew melody but then a gorgeous guitar or vocal line shines through and really sounds brilliant.  “From the Reel” is a beautiful, aching acoustic ballad.

The disc ends with the odd, seven minute “Wetbrain/Your War.”  The first part (wet brain) is kind of slow but it builds into a beautiful dark song about addiction.

This is a really beautiful album, although there are moments when I fell like Martin gets too delicate, it’s amazing to hear just what he can do when he’s on his own.

[READ: October 19, 2015] Academia Waltz

Way back a long time ago I was pretty excited to read all of the Bloom County reissue books.  Somehow I only got through Books 1 and 2, although I see now that five volumes were released in total.

Presumably at the end of that run, (which technically ended in 2011) comes this volume.  Academia Waltz is the strip that Breathed wrote back in college.  This book collects some (but apparently not all) of the strips.  It’s odd to not collect them all since there is also an art gallery with all kinds of original pieces (complete with edits and scribbled notes) that duplicate many of the earlier strips.

The first part collects pieces from Academia Waltz the 1979 collection.  The second part comes from Bowing Out, the 1980 Collection. (more…)

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James Joyce–The Ondt & the Gracehoper [illustrated by Thomas McNally] (2014)

Posted in Abba, Arthur Schopenhauer, C.K. Ogden, Danis Rose, Fables, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Immanuel Kant, Irish Writer, James Joyce, Language, Martin Tielli, Nick Buzz, Rheostatics, Smarty Pants, Talking Heads, tagged on October 17, 2015| Leave a Comment »

antgrassSOUNDTRACK: MARTIN TIELLI-Jane Bond, Waterloo, Ontario (September 29 2001).

jane bondThe second Martin Tielli solo show on Rheostaticslive comes two years after the first one.  It’s a new band and Martin’s debut solo album We Didn’t Even Suspect He Was the Poppy Salesman is due out soon (or just came out, it’s hard to be sure).   Although interestingly, he plays some songs that will wind up on his next solo album (which is years away). The show is at Jane Bond in Waterloo, and unlike the previous show, this one has massive audio problems. There are 4 songs that are nearly inaudible and the whole set is recorded very low.  Which is a bummer because the set is very good.

As seems to happen a lot to Martin, he is having all kinds of technical troubles and he gets shocked a number of times during the set (I don’ think I’ve ever heard of this happening to people before, but it seems to happen to him a lot.)  He also asks the crowd quite often if they can hear okay.

The show opens with the backing music of Talking Heads (which is quite loud).  And then Martin and company open the show with the slow Scott Walker song “Farmer in the City.”  Then they play a Nick Buzz song, “Love Steams” and Martin gets shocked so bad that he takes a break. He re-starts the song and it sounds really good.

Then inexplicably, Martin’s voice drops out and the bass gets really loud.  And the next four songs are really hard to enjoy. You can also hear the crowd really loud.  (Did Martin almost fall or something? there’s a big gasp from the audience at one point.  You can also hear someone loudly ask “You want a beer?”).

The audio slowly starts to improve from there.  By “She Said ‘We’re on Our Way Down'” it’s quiet but it’s very good otherwise.

Then Chris Gardiner comes out to help on “Waterstriders,” which is bit louder.  By the time “My Sweet Relief” comes in, the sound has gotten better (probably because it is a full rocking song) with a very country/twangy feel).  He tells a little story about the history of “That’s How They Do It in Warsaw” which is for Kasia (she recites the Polish on the album).  He tells a funny story about how she went to Warsaw and developed feelings for her cousin).

There’s a lot of funny banter in this set. Martin talks about a movie he was watching in a bar.  It was presumably on Show Case, and he described a woman being tied up and a man masturbating and then someone collects something in a syringe (presumably semen) and injects it into a vagina. What could it possibly have been?  It sounds like someone might have given him the answer, but we can’t hear it–so we’ll never know!  One of the band members shouts out that it was “Who’s the Boss.”

They play a great version of “Digital Beach” and “Shaved Head.”  “How Can you Sleep” has a great solo.

Also at the end of “Sgt Kraulis” (which is from the next album) they say it is last call (for everyone who is not on the stage).  There’s a funny comment where someone says, Watch how this law gets broken.   And they all order rye and cokes.  “Sgt Kraulis” has a funky opening (they play some of Abba’s “Mama Mia”).

The set ends with a nice version of “Take Me in Your Hand.”  And then a surprise (to me) of “Blue Hysteria.”  Then he plays the second part of “Wet Brain/Your War” (just the “Your War” part).

And he ends with a great version of “Record Body Count” and “a stolen song from borrowed tune,” the opener of the next album: “Beauty On.”

There’s so much great music here, it’s a bummer the quality isn’t better.

[READ: June 13, 2015] The Ondt & The Gracehoper

This fascinating book is an excerpt from Finnegans Wake (Book III Chapter I).  Thomas McNally has taken one of the fables in Joyce’s Wake and has illustrated it.  The book includes a few essays about the Wake and about expressionism and why McNally illustrated the book the way he did.

I have never read Finnegans Wake.  And I am fairly certain I never will.  I feel like this is a minor failing on my part, and yet it’s not pushing me to read this largely incomprehensible book.  So I was excited to see this weird little excerpt of the fabled difficult book (with pictures!)

In the introduction, McNally explains that despite everything we’ve heard about the Wake, it was, in fact, meant to be read and it is indeed, quite funny.  Joyce is playing around with language in incredible ways–throwing in multiple meanings in different languages in all kinds of words.  He says that for a first read, one should just read it–preferably aloud–and not worry about the various meanings that you are undoubtedly missing. (more…)

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Jeff Bartsch–Two Across (2015)

Posted in Crossword Puzzles, Felicia Day (author), Jeff Bartsch, Johann Sebastian Bach, Smarty Pants, Tiny Desk Concert, Zuill Bailey on September 14, 2015| Leave a Comment »

2across  SOUNDTRACK: ZUILL BAILEY-Tiny Desk Concert #63 (June 4, 2010).

baileyZuill Bailey plays a cello.  Well, actually, that’s not right.  The cello he plays is old “very old — but it’s also special, built by the renowned Venetian maker Matteo Goffriller in 1693. That means Johann Sebastian Bach was all of 8 years old when Goffriller slapped on the final layer of shellac.  The instrument is unusually large, with a tawny orange hue, and one of only two Goffrillers which can boast an intricately carved Rosette under the fingerboard [see below].  And its sound? A full, round, burnished tone that pours forth with remarkable volume.”

Bailey plays three pieces from three of Bach’s suites (he had just released an album of six suites).  And they sound amazing.  The first piece is instantly recognizable and sounds incredible on this instrument.

But beyond playing a gorgeous cello, Bailey is a great storyteller.  He describes how when Bach started writing suites for cello, the instrument was considered a church bass–basically a piece of furniture and not something to write gorgeous suites on.  He also says that people have asked him if he has named his cello and he says that he calls it J.Lo. because it is “robust in the bass tones.”

Introducing the second piece he says that the sarabande was banned from polite society because it was considered too slow and sensuous in those times (which is why he’s going to play it now).

bailey2And then he describes the feeling of the sound that comes from that cello–it resonates through the maple in the instrument and vibrates his body. It is clear how much he loves this instrument.

Obviously the pieces are beautiful, but his renditions are really stunning.

J.S. Bach: Solo Cello Suite No. 1 – “Prelude”

J.S. Bach: Solo Cello Suite No. 2 – “Sarabande”

J.S. Bach: Solo Cello Suite No. 3 – “Prelude”

[READ: September 13, 2015] Two Across

Sarah brought this book home and loved it.  She thought I’d enjoy it, too.  And why not?  The main character, Stanley, is a crossword puzzle maker (Sarah finished it on the day that puzzler Merle Reagle died, sad to say).  The other main character, Vera, is a math genius who also becomes a puzzle maker.  The fact that I just finished the Felicia Day book in which she (a real person) is a math genius, gave me strange parallels between Felicia and Vera.

If those character traits interest you, there is so much to like about this book.  We first meet Stanley and Vera as they are competing for the national spelling bee in Washington D.C.  They are both certain that they will win (we get alternating perspectives from each of them).  And we see their minds as they hate the other one who is trying to take the title from them.  When the bee ends, they are both rewarded for their efforts.  And they form a strange bond, because they both have a lot in common even though their lives are entirely different.

Stanley lives in a hotel.  His grandfather was a chef there and his father died in WWII, so the hotel has offered them their cheapest (crappiest) suite for the rent of $1 a month. Stanley’s mother never leaves the room… ever.  She had never recovered from Stanley’s father’s death.  The hotel staff is like Stanley’s family, and he is well looked after.  But his mother pushes Stanley very hard, insisting that he go to Harvard.  And Stanley is clearly a genius–he used to memorize the encyclopedia, and he has all kinds of facts at his disposal.  But he is also deeply wounded by never knowing his father.

Vera, on the other hand, is pretty much transient.  Her mother is working her butt off to become an IBM sales rep and so they travel everywhere.  Vera is also a genius, finishing her school work in a few days and then spending the rest of her time reading or doing challenging math.

They are both quite likable, even if neither one has any social skills at all. (more…)

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Thomas Siddell–Gunnerkrigg Court: Volume 1: Orientation (2008)

Posted in Adventure, And the Kids, Boredom, Culture Shock, Demons, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Ghosts, Graphic Novel, Magic, Monsters, Myths, Research, Romance, Science, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Supernatural, Superstitions, Thomas Siddell, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfinished series, Witches, YA Books, Zombies on July 29, 2015| Leave a Comment »

gunner SOUNDTRACK: AND THE KIDS-Tiny Desk Concert #452 (June 30, 2015).

Ikids hadn’t heard of And The Kids before, but I was intrigued by their name and the lead singer’s look (is that a tattoo on her lip?).

But I didn’t like the way the first song started with a modified military “Glory Glory Hallelujah” musical refrain–it seemed strangely forced, especially for the first song I’d heard by them.  Although I may have liked it better if I knew the band better. It was a weird way to start.

Especially since I ultimate liked “Glory Glory.” (I am hearing a chorus of “I’ve been picking up floor milk” which is as fascinating as whatever the lyrics really are).  The drummer has great harmony vocals that really adds something to the song. I also love at around 2 and half minutes when the song turns into something very different—faster guitars with lead vocals by the drummer.  And even the bassist who has been quiet thus far chimes in with another layer of voices (and some interesting bass lines). It’s very cool.  So the song which started out kind of shaky really rocks out at the end.

The band trio, with a singer/guitarist, bassist and a great drummer.  There’s something about the lead singer’s guitar–it seems really big (maybe it’s just the head of the guitar?).  And the sound that the drummer gets is really great too—it may just be this recording, but the snare is really sharp.

For “All Day All Night” the drummer busts out a glockenspiel. It has a kind of shouted chorus that borders on dissonance but isn’t quite.  I like the way the song slows down (with the guitarist playing keyboard as it builds back up), the drummer plays the glockenspiel and the drums at the same time.  And the all three start singing with interesting harmonies. The ending whoo hoos are sharp and distinct as well.

“Cats Were Born” has a very interesting lyric: “The cats were born to kill for fun.”  But perhaps even more interesting than the words are the yodels and screams and yips that punctuate the song.  What’s also strange is the way the bassist seems so reticent to look goofy while the other two are wild.   The guitarist busted out a small four string guitar for this song which sounds really distinct. And the drummer really shines.  Through many of the songs she’s playing rim shots which is a distinctive sound in itself, but when she switches over to a faster style for the middle section, it’s really intense.

I don’t think any bands has gone so far from me not thinking much of them to being really won over by the end of their Tiny Desk.

[READ: February 26, 2015] Gunnerkrigg Court [1-14]

I discovered this book through my Goodreads account.  It was suggested because, well, I don’t recall, it had something to do with schools and supernatural and graphic novels or whatever.  There was also one that was suggested for Sarah (it was about boarding school and tea) which turned out to be Japanese softcore porn, so beware the Goodreads suggestions.

Although there was nothing to beware of with this book.

I actually thought Sarah would like it more because she loves boarding school fiction.  But she gave up on the book after a few stories.  Interestingly I almost did as well. It wasn’t that it was bad, in fact we both enjoyed the beginning.  But it was the kind of book that once you put it down, you didn’t feel compelled to pick it up again.  Perhaps because each chapter feels so self-contained–with no real cliffhanger–that it seemed like the stories were done.  And while the stories were good they weren’t awesome…so.  She gave up, but I continued

And I’m glad I did. (more…)

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