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Roberto Bolaño–2666 [Week 5] The Part About Fate (1 of 2) (2004)

Posted in American Music Club, Big Books, Bob Mould, bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Boss Jim Gettys, Boxing, Communists, cuppa joe, Dromedary Records, Farewell Singapore, Footstone, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gena Rowlands Band, Greed, Hugh Thomas, Infinite Zombies, lions.chase.tigers, Moviola, Natasha Wimmer, Newspapers, R.E.M., Religion, Roberto Bolaño, Smarty Pants, Social Distortion, Stuyvesant, Teenage Fanclub, The Byrds, The Dark Brothers, The Mommyheads, The Neutron Drivers, There Will Be Fireworks, Three Blind Wolves, Translation, Travel, Voltaire, Wallendas on February 22, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: Make the Load Lighter: Indie Rock for Haiti (2010).

I mentioned this disc a few days ago because it’s a benefit disc for the people of Haiti.  I had encouraged people to order it ($10 to a good cause, eh?) but hadn’t fully listened to it yet.

Well, after playing the disc nonstop for the weekend, it’s time to chime in and say that this is a fantastic disc of indie rock, which spans the indie rock gamut from harder punk songs to beautiful heart-felt passionate tracks.  Each and every track is catchy, and most of them have a cool twist or hook to push it beyond being “just” an indie song

The first three songs are really fast and really heavy.  Footstone opens the disc.  I don’t know a lot by them, but this sounds to me like their heaviest song ever.  It comes across like a really hard edged punk song, but you know there’s a groove too.

Boss Jim Gettys (one of many wonderfully named bands) play a 2 minute punk metal blast that is notable for the cool guitar solo that breaks up the onslaught.  The third heavy song is by Dromedary stalwarts cuppa joe (!?).  “Taniqua” is a fast song with a rocking guitar intro.  It thuds along for 2 and a half minutes and then ends with a wonderfully upbeat chord that leads nicely in to the fourth song.  Moviola’s “Calling on the Line” is a poppy jangly college rock sounding song from the 90s.  It pretty well epitomizes the Dromedary sound.  The band has a bunch of records out which you can see here.

I wasn’t that impressed with Three Blind Wolves at first.  It seemed a little lacking.  But after about three listens I got it, and it’s now one of my favorite songs on the disc.  The singer’s voice is varied and wonderful, warbling over a fairly spare musical intro (the occasional high notes are totally cool).  But the chorus just rocks out wonderfully.  Three Blind Wolves is one of four Scottish bands from what I rather assumed would be a Jersey based compilation.

Paula Corino’s song is okay.  It’s my least favorite track on the disc, but only because it never really grabs me, and, while it’s a totally fine song, it gets a little lost amidst the rest of the tracks.  It’s followed by Wallendas’ “Adrianne” a delightful poppy song like a modern day Byrds.

The next song, The Neutron Drivers’ “All Around the Sun” doesn’t have an original second in it.  And yet it is easily the catchiest song on the whole disc. When you first hear the opening guitars you pretty much know exactly what the whole song (even the obvious guitar solo) will sound like.  It’s like the uber-rocksong.  And yet for all of its sounding familiar, it doesn’t sounds like any specific song. Amazing how they pulled that off.

The Dark Brothers’ “Knee Deep in Sin” is a weird and unsettling song in that it sounds like the singer from Social Distortion with a slide guitar.  It’s got a majorly country feel, until about three minutes in when you get a guitar solo straight outta Teenage Fanclub’s “The Concept” and suddenly this country song is a slow burning rocker.  Very cool.

The next two songs justify the price of the disc.  There Will Be Fireworks’ (Scottish band #2) “Foreign Thoughts” is a fantastic, amazing song.  It builds and builds with tension upon tension as the singer (with a wonderfully aggressive accent) spits the words over more and more instrumentation.  It’s followed by the utterly amazing Gena Rowlands Band’s “Fuckups Of the World Unite.”  This is like the great long lost American Music Club song.  It’s vulgar and yet completely un-profane.  It’s catchy, heartfelt and it blows me away each time I hear it, both lyrically and musically.  The simple guitar paired with the opening couplet is amazing in an of itself but it’s even better when it closes the song.

The Mommyheads come next with a remixed version of “Spiders” from Flying Suit.  I enjoyed the song on that disc, but it takes on a new life in this remixed version.  It feels fuller and even slighty creepier.

On like my third or fourth listen, Scottish band #3, Farewell Singapore’s “Blue” grabbed me and said “HEY THIS SONG IS FUCKING GREAT YA BASTARD.”  And man, is it ever.  I’ve been walking around all weekend singing “Scotland’s as dark as it’s going to be” over and over.  And I’ve no idea what it means.  The sudden breaks in the song sound like there’s something wrong with the track given the propulsive nature of everything else.  And the intense guitar solo that follows the glockenspiel bit is fantastic.  Oh and the male/female vocals sound great together.

Jennifer Convertible (a wonderful band name which gently rips a regional chain store, which seems to have changed its name to the far less inspired Jennifer Sofas and Sofabeds) has a very cool song that opens like a latter R.E.M. track but brings in some wonderfully atmospheric guitar noise to add a real sense of foreboding to the song.  The buzzing guitar solo is a nice touch, too.

lions.chase.tigers (4th and final Scottish band, with a downloadable EP on their website) sound a bit like an early Bob Mould track.  Which is pretty good in itself, but what I love about the song is that it’s a cool jangly indie rock song with a great martial drum sound.  And it bops along, in a minor key until we get a delicate guitar riff and then a rocking chorus.  But the really interesting part is yet to come: the gentle guitars come back but they’re accompanied by a voice screaming its lungs out (and yet mixed way down, so it’s no louder than the guitar).  And the song proceeds as if that isn’t a weird thing to add in.  Man, it takes guts to write a song like that, and it pays off.

The disc ends with Stuyvesant’s song, “Salieri.  It’s another slow builder, but it’s quite catchy and when the harmonies kick in in the last minute, it become quite the great song.  And it ends the disc on a good note.

So, in sum, order the disc.  It’s for a good cause, but even if you’re not into that sort of thing, you get some really great music for your money.  There’s literally not a bad track on the disc, and the bulk of them are outstanding.

Even the liner notes are interesting (and provide a look at why and how this disc came about).  My only complaint is that you get almost no information on the bands!  Now, I realize that in the world of online downloads, you’re lucky enough to get album art (and the photos are sad and beautiful) but I’d love to know more about these bands, where they’re from, who they are, and if any of them are have websites or other discs or whatnot.  But then, I actually read liner notes on discs!

Download the tracks, and the art, here.  Do it!  Now!

[READ: Week of February 15, 2010] 2666 [pg 231-290]

This week’s reading is the first half of the third Part: The Part About Fate.  And I have to say thus far it is easily my favorite part of the book.  I enjoyed it right from the start upon learning that the titular Fate is not an abstract Fate but a person named Fate.  A nice twist right up front.

This section also deals quite directly with matters of race.  Fate is black, and during his travels he is acutely aware of his color.  Plus, many scenes pop up in which race is definitely a factor.

Fate’s real name is Quincy Williams.  He is a 30 year-old reporter for Black Dawn, a magazine out of Harlem.  Quincy is known as Oscar Fate; everyone calls him Fate. (more…)

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Chris Schweizer–Crogan’s Vengeance (2008)

Posted in Adventure, Chris Schweizer, Fishing, Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, Greed, Larry LaLonde, Les Claypool, Oni Press, Pirates, Primus, YA Books on February 10, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LES CLAYPOOL-Of Whales and Woe (2006).

Although I was a little disappointed with Of Fungi and Foe, I enjoyed it enough to want to track down Of Whales and Woe, since it seemed to be generally better received.  What’s interesting about this disc is that it sounds a lot like Primus, except that rather than guitar, other various instruments have been substituted to accompany Les’ bass.  And since one of the instruments is the saxophone, (and there’s no guitar) this album sounds (at times) like beloved Morphine (with a much funkier bass and completely un-sexy vocals).

On the first few listens, when I wasn’t listening very carefully, I really enjoyed the disc.  It reminded me a lot of Primus, although it had a lot of Les’ solo quirks.

However, once I started scrutinizing it a bit more, I found I didn’t enjoy it as much.  The first track, “Back Off Turkey” reminds me of some of the tracks on Fungi: wild and crazy sounding music but the vocals are so muddy it’s impossible to tell what’s up with the song.

On the opposite end from the Fungi-like bass heavy tracks, we have “Iowan Gal” a light -sounding and light-hearted romp about, well, an Iowan Gal. (There’s a lot of fun little quirks in there–Bow ditty bow bow).

And yet there’s some really great tracks on here: “One Better” is an amazing track, highlighting just how great Claypool is as a songwriter and arranger.  This song lasts pretty long but because there’s a lot of different things going on, it never overstays its welcome.

Most of the songs are stories about various bizarro characters.  And although I love Les’ characters, this turns into one of the downfalls of the disc.  In the great tradition of storytelling songs, the songs tend to be verses only with nary a chorus.  And that’s fine because most storytellers use the music as a background to accompany the story.  Les’ music is far too aggressive/innovative/interesting to be  background.  So when you get a great wild bassline, you’re attracted to it.  But when it lasts for 5 minutes with no changes, it’s exhausting.  And trying to listen to lyrics along with it is, well, I think your brain just shuts down (especially when they are recorded low in the mix and are hard to hear).  And so, the album feels a lot longer than it is.

Maybe I miss Ler’s amazing guitars.  I’m still unclear about why Primus has split, especially if Les is writing songs that are not unlike Primus.  Of course, having said all that, there is no denying the awesomeness of Les Claypool.  The funny thing is that even a reigned-in Claypool is still pretty out there.  I think maybe sometime he just goes too far out there.

[READ: February 7, 2010] Crogan’s Vengeance

When Sarah and I went to BEA, we spoke to the Oni Press guy who was praising this book, The Crogan Adventures, as a fantastic series aimed at teens, but really readable for the whole family. The premise is that the Crogan family (and there’s an extensive family tree on the back cover), all led exciting lives.  The stories about these men are being told to the youngest Crogan boy Eric, in present day.

This first book is about Catfoot Crogan, an honest sailor who was more or less forced into a life of piracy in the 1700s.  And the story is fantastic.  There is sailor talk, there is swashbuckling, a terrible storm, even a shark! (more…)

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Stephen Shaw–These Green Fields (2009)

Posted in Camogie, Drinking, Hurling, Irish Writer, Marriage (Happy), Stephen Shaw, The Saw Doctors on February 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE SAW DOCTORS-If This Is Rock’n’Roll, I Want My Old Job Back (1991).

A line from a Saw Doctors song is quoted in this book, so why not review the whole disc,yeah?

I’d first heard of The Saw Doctors in college.  My friend Jaime brought this very disc over to a party (although I prefer the title of their second disc: All the Way from Tuam, better).  I din’t really give them much thought after that.  But then, several years later I saw them live at the Guinness Fleadh Festival and they were fantastic.  I saw them at another show elsewhere (details are sketchy now) and they were excellent then too.

This is their first disc and it’s a bit more subdued and folky than their later releases.  The fun part, of course, is the singer’s greatly Irish-accented singing and so many of the regional references.  I mentioned earlier that there’s a song quoted in this book, and that song is “N17” one of the great anthem songs of all time (even if you’ve never been on the N17, which indeed, I have not, I’ll still happily sing “I wish I was on the N SEVENTEEN, stone walls and the grass is green”).

In general, but even moreso on their later discs, they sing anthemic folk rock (the kind of songs that work very well live).  But they mix elements of trad, punk and just good old rock in as well.  In many ways they’re like a clean cut version of the Pogues (I mean, just look at them on the cover of their greatest hits).  And their Greatest Hits is a good place to check them out.  You get a lot of singles (and they are definitely a singles band), for a good oul’ Oirish rocking time.

I recently learned that they are one of the highest selling Irish artists of all time (although I can think of maybe one other band that has outsold them, yeah?).

[READ: January 31, 2010] These Green fields

Full disclosure right up front.  The author of this book is the boyfriend of one of my friend’s sisters.  Of course, I’ve never met him, and I’ve only met her once or twice, so it’s not like they’re any conflict of interest, but I know how the internet likes to gossip, so I’ll be straight witcha.

I ordered the book from his site, and when it arrived, I was a little concerned because the back cover and the prologue were rather confusing.  Confusing not because they’re about hurling (a lot more on that later) but confusing because the writing wasn’t that sharp.  The back cover just didn’t really grab me, and the prologue, while in retrospect makes a lot of sense, it just wasn’t all that exciting.  But that problem was cleared up once the book proper started,  so I had my guard up for naught.

But so what’s this about hurling?  Well, hurling is an Irish sport (and I’m going to mangle this, so my apologies to those who know the game better than me).  Okay, so basically, you’re on a big field with goals at either end (like soccer, say).  But each goal, in addition to having a net (which has a goalkeeper) also has uprights (like American football, say).  Points are scored in two ways: Hit the ball through the uprights and you get one point.  Hit the ball past the goalie and you get 3 points.  But just to confuse matters, the scoring delineates between the two forms of scoring: Goals-Points, so you see scores like 2-16 to 3-19.  I believe that it’s the total point tally that picks the winner, but it’s amazing how quickly fans can look at these tallies and tell who won.

And what a bout the ball?  Well, I’ll back a up a little and say that thee are two sports that are played on this field.  (Both sports are sponsored by the GAA, the Gaelic Athletic Association): Gaelic Football and Hurling.  Gaelic Football uses a ball like a soccer ball (forgive me, Gaelic Footballers for that simplification).  But hurling, glorious hurling, goes in another route altogether.  The ball is similar to a baseball and the bat–yes they use a bat–is like a field hockey stick, except the base is flat.  (I have a sliotar (the ball) and a hurley (the bat) at home, although I’ve never really gotten to use them.

So the men (women play a similar game called camogie) run up and down the field with these hurleys scooping up the ball and running with the ball balanced on the end of the hurley (you can only use your hands to catch a ball in the air or to throw it to yourself for self-hitting purposes).   And when you get close enough, as you might imagine, you whack the ball at the goal.  I’ll repeat.  You run with the bat and ball, stop and whack the ball down the field with your stick.  Is there any doubt what sport real men play?  By the way helmets became compulsory on Jan 1, 2010.  American Football, you’re a bunch of nancy-boys compared to this.

Oh, and the players are all volunteers!  My friend Louise told me that her teachers used to play on the weekend and they would routinely come into class with black eyes or busted teeth.

For an official explanation of this awesome game, check out these videos (#2 has some great footage and playing rules):

But hey we’re here for a book, right? (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–Everything and More: A Compact History of ∞ (2003)

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Canadian Music, David Foster Wallace, Eschaton, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), History, Infinite Summer, Infinity, Language, Math, Nazis, Scholarship, Smarty Pants, The Tragically Hip on February 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE TRAGICALLY HIP-Live from the Vault-Volume 4 (2009).

Faithful reader will recall that this disc got trapped in my car’s CD changer.  When I had it the player replaced, they sent the old one back to mysterious Toyota offices far away.  And, about a month or so after sending it out, I received a package from Toyota with my three lost discs (this one, a Black Sabbath disc and, a promo disc I took from the library to try and wedge into the player to get it to eject the other discs (that doesn’t work, by the way) which was, embarrassingly, Ozzy & Kelly Osbourne doing a duet of something or other).

Thank you random Toyota person for keeping this disc, which is not easily replaced, in good condition.

So this concert is from 1994 and was recorded in Brussels on the Day for Night Tour.  I think many fans feel that this is a high point in The Hip’s recording career, and this concert attests to it.  The band sounds fantastic, energetic and really tight.  And the music from this era is just great: dynamic and dramatic.

This disc also adds to speculation that lead singer Gord Downie is a weird guy.  His between song banter is quite peculiar, to say the least (apropos of nothing: “Do you think of your pet as a pet or a member of the family?”).  Which also leads me to wonder if fans in non-English speaking countries (and yes, I know that many people in Brussels do speak English) think or care or even mind when lead singers babble in English to them.  Just curious.

I don’t have any other Vault discs from The Hip, but this one is certainly great.

[READ: During an ∞ of minutes during December 2009 & January 2010] Everything and More

As part of my pledge to read all of DFW’s works, I skipped the fiction and moved straight to this.  I hadn’t heard all that much about this book, except that it was pretty dense.  And, yup it is.

I’m going to give a comparison for any other DFW fans who are thinking about reading this.  If you have read Infinite Jest (and if you’re interested in DFW you should certainly read that before this book), and if you recall Endnote 123: Pemulis’ high tech math formula for calculating Mean Value w/r/t Eschaton, then you will have a fair idea of what you’re in for with Everything and More.  So, if your eyes glazed when you started to read that endnote, you’ll likely want to skip this book altogether.  However, if you plugged through with that endnote and you didn’t care that you didn’t get it, but you kind of enjoyed it because despite the math, it is very funny, well, then you might enjoy this book too.

If you’re a hard core math dude and you understand what things like: ∃ and ∈ and ∉ and ∏ and ℜ and even ∀ then you’ll have no problem with this book.

But math aside, there’s a lot of funny things in this book.  And DFW is in full conversational tone, with several places where he says things like “not sure if this has been mentioned in the book yet” implying that he never proofread the thing, which we know he did.  There’s even a funny observation as to the placement of a picture (“it’s not entirely clear to me why they put [this pencil sketch] here”).  There’s also tons of footnotes.  And most of them are labeled IYI (meaning If You’re Interested), and he totally lets you off the hook if you don’t feel compelled to read these.  Although as with most things DFW does, the footnotes are always tons of fun.

He also shows his great undying affection for his math professor, Dr. Goris (Dr. G).  He quotes liberally from Dr G’s classes, citing examples, funny quotes and the amusing joke that Irrational Numbers are called ‘surds.  There’s also great joke about schnitt (which I’ll explain later).  It even opens with a hilarious (or maybe not) section about the inability to get out of bed in the morning when you think about infinity.

As in for example in the early morning, especially if you wake up slightly before your alarm goes off, when it can suddenly and for no reason occur to you that you’ve been getting out of bed every morning without the slightest doubt that the floor would support you. Lying there now considering the matter, it appears at least theoretically possible that some flaw in the floor’s construction or its molecular integrity could make it buckle, or that even some aberrant bit of quantum flux or something could cause you to melt right through. Meaning it doesn’t seem logically impossible or anything. It’s not like you’re actually scared that the floor might give way in a moment when you really do get out of bed. It’s just that certain moods and lines of thinking are more abstract, not just focused on whatever needs or obligations you’re going to get out of bed to attend to.

And but so, what is this thing about?

Okay, so it’s about ∞ and the history of ∞.  It begins with a great section about the ancient Greeks (Zeno’s Paradox and all that) and slowly moves up through to Aristotle.  I myself have always been a Platonist (yes, in fact, I have made that distinction in my life, which may say more about me than many people know), and have always been kind of anti-Aristotle.  And, for the purposes of this book, that’s a great position to take.  Aristotle turns out to be like the arch-nemesis of ∞. (more…)

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McSweeney’s #33: The San Francisco Panorama (2009)

Posted in Adrian Tomine, Airlines, Alia Malek, Andrew Sean Greer, Art, Art Spiegelman, Big Star, Book Reviews, Books about music, Books about writers, Brent Hoff, Caddyshack, Canadian Music, Cars, Carson Ellis, Children's Books, China Miéville, Chip Kidd, Chris Adrian, Chris Ware, Comic Strips, Constellation Records, Daniel Handler, Dave Eggers, Deb Olin Unferth, Dicky Murphy, Dip-in Books, Do Make Say Think, Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Edna O'Brien, Entertainment Weekly, Essays, Flash Fiction, Food, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Geoff Nicholson, George Saunders, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Greed, Harper's, J. Malcolm Garcia, J.G. Ballard, James Franco, Jessica Abel, Jon Scieszka, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kara Walker, KPOO 89.5--San Francisco, CA, LGBTQ, Mary Williams, Matthew Klam, McSweeney's, Meatballs, Michael Chabon, Miranda July, Mogwai, New Yorker, Newspapers, Nicholson Baker, Prospect, Rachel Maddow, Roddy Doyle, Salman Rushdie, Seth, Seth Fried, Short Story, Sports, Stephen King, The Blues Brothers, The New York Times, The Onion, The Walrus, Tom Bissell, Travel, Universities, Violence, Wajahat Ali, War, Wholphin, William T. Vollmann on January 16, 2010| 8 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: DO MAKE SAY THINK-Other Truths [CST062] (2009).

I’ve always enjoyed Do Make Say Think’s CDs.  They play instrumentals that are always intriguing and which never get dull.

But this CD far exceeds anything they have done so far (and  they’ve done some great work).   There are only four tracks, and they range from 8 to 12 minutes long.  Each track is named for a word in the band’s name: Do, Make, Say, Think.  And each one is a fully realized mini epic.

“Do” sounds like a gorgeous Mogwai track.  While “Make” has wonderfully diverse elements: a cool percussion midsection and a horn-fueled end section that works perfectly with the maniacal drumming.  “Say” is another Mogwai-like exploration, although it is nicely complemented by horns.  It also ends with a slow jazzy section that works in context but is somewhat unexpected. Finally, “Think” closes the disc with a delightful denouement.  It’s the slowest (and shortest) track, and it shows that even slowing down their instrumentals doesn’t make them dull.

It’s a fantastic record from start to finish.  This is hands down my favorite Constellation release in quite some time.

[READ: December 2009 – January 13, 2010] McSweeney’s #33.

The ever-evolving McSweeney’s has set out to do the unlikely: they printed Issue #33 as a Sunday Newspaper.  It is called The San Francisco Panorama and, indeed, it is just like a huge Sunday newspaper. It has real news in (it is meant to be current as of December 7, 2009).  As well as a Sports section, a magazine section and even comics!

[DIGRESSION] I stopped reading newspapers quite some time ago.  I worked for one in college and have long been aware that the news is just something to fill the space between ads.  I do like newspapers in theory, and certainly hope they don’t all go away but print issues are a dying breed.  When I think about the waste that accompanies a newspaper, I’m horrified.  Sarah and I even did a Sunday New York Times subscription for a while, but there were half a dozen sections that we would simply discard unopened.  And, realistically that’s understandable.  Given how long it took me  to read all of the Panorama, if you actually tried to read the whole Sunday paper, you’d be finished the following Sunday (or even two Sundays later).

Their lofty goal here was to show what print journalism can still do. And with that I concur heartily.  Even if I don’t read the newspaper, the newspapers as entities are worth saving.  Because it is pretty much only print journalism that finds real, honest to God, worthy news stories.  TV news is a joke.  There is virtually nothing of value on network TV.  Fox News is beyond a joke.  CNBC is sad (although Rachel Maddow is awesome!) and even CNN, the originator of all of this 24 hour news nonsense still can’t fill their airtime with non-sensationalized news.

Obviously, there are some decent internet sites, but for the most part they don’t have the budget to support real news investigation.  You either get sensationalized crap like Drudge or rebroadcasts of real news.

So, print is the last bastion of news.  And you can see that in journalistic pieces in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Walrus, Prospect and, yes, in newspapers.

But enough.  What about THIS newspaper?  Oh and unlike other McSweeney’s reviews I’ve done, there is NO WAY that I am writing a thorough comment on everything in here.  There’s just way too much.  Plus, there are many sections that are just news blurbs.  Larger articles and familiar authors will be addressed, however.  [UPDATE: January 18]: If, however, like Alia Malek below, you bring it to my attention that I’ve left you out (or gotten something wrong!) drop me a line, and I’ll correct things.

There is in fact a Panorama Information Pamphlet which answers a lot of basic questions, like why, how and how often (just this once, they promise!). There’s also a Numbers section which details the size, scope and cost of making this (it shows that with an initial start up, anyone could make a newspaper if they talked enough about what the readers were interested in). (more…)

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100 Page Tribute to David Foster Wallace–Sonora Review 55/56 (2009)

Posted in Austin City Limits, Big Books, Books about writers, Bret Easton Ellis, Charles Bock, Dave Eggers, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Eschaton, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Greg Carlisle, Harper's, History, Infinite Summer, Jonathan Franzen, Karen Green, Ken Kalfus, Language, McSweeney's, Premiere, Research, Rick Moody, Sonora Review, Suicide, Sven Birkerts, The Decemberists, Tom Bissell, Word usage on January 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DECEMBERISTS-Austin City Limits (2007).

I’ve recently discovered the awesomeness of Austin City Limits.  And in the two or so years that I’ve been watching, I’ve seen some great live shows (even is most bands are reduced to 30 minutes).  This re-broadcast of The Decemberists, however, just blew me away.

The concert comes from The Crane Wife tour, and it is just a wonderful exploration of this fantastic CD.  I’ve liked the Decemberists for years, and have listened to all of their discs multiple times, but there was something about this recording, in particular the wailing guitar work of Colin Meloy (seeing him lying on the floor making crazed feedback was pretty impressive), and the amazing solo work of Chris Funk that gave me even more respect for this wonderful album and the band.

It is highly recommended. For more info see here.

[READ: January 14, 2010] 100 Page Tribute to David Foster Wallace

I was able to order a copy of this journal directly from The University of Arizona and received it not too long ago.  It is a two part issue (55/56) that is chock full of all kinds of things, including this 100 page tribute to DFW.  I intend to read the whole thing, or at least more than just the DFW stuff, but as I don’t see that happening too soon, I wanted to address this tribute section directly.

DFW received his MFA from UA and he was also an editor at Sonora Review.  He also published “/Solomon Silverfish/” there shortly after getting his MFA.  So the tributes make sense from this publication.  All of the tributes here come from varied people and are all either interesting or moving to the Wallace fan. (more…)

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Ben Schott–Schott’s Miscellany 2009: An Almanac (2008)

Posted in Aesop Rock, Airlines, Art, Authors, Barack Obama, Ben Schott, Bible, Bill Fox, Bob Dylan, Books about music, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Collecting, Comedians, Consumerism, Contests, Death, Dip-in Books, Drinking, Drugs, Explosions in the Sky, Film & TV, Food, Foreign Books, Games (Non Video), Grizzly Bear, History, Holidays, I'm from Barcelona, Language, LGBTQ, Lightning Bolt, Magik Markers, Military, Morality, Nature, Nico, Of Montreal, Oxford Collapse, Poetry, Prison, Racism, Religion, Reykjavik!, Roger Federer, Sex, Smarty Pants, Sports, Sufjan Stevens, Technology, The Future, Travel, TSA, Violence, War, Word usage on December 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: The Believer June/July 2007 Music Issue Compilation CD: Cue the Bugle Turbulent (2007).

The 2007 Believer disc smashes the mold of folkie songs that they have established with the previous discs in the series.  The theme for this disc is that there’s no theme, although the liner notes give this amusing story:

one decaffeinated copy editor (“the new guy”) made a suggestion: “The Believer CD should be composed of eight a.m. music/breakfast-substitute jams, like that commercial from a while back with the guy who gets out of bed over and over again while ELO plays over his morning routine. You should tell all of the bands to write/contribute songs worth listening to within three minutes of waking up.”

So, without a theme, they just asked artists for some great songs.  There’s one or two tracks written especially for the disc (Sufjan Stevens, Lightning Bolt).  There’s a couple B-sides.  There are some wildly noisy raucous songs: and three of them come from duos!  No Age offers a very noisy blast of feedback.  Magik Markers play a super-fast distortion-fueled rocker, and Lightning Bolt play 5 minutes of noise noise noise.  Oh, and there’s even a rap (Aesop Rock)!

Tracks 3-7 are just about the 5 best songs in a row on any compilation.  Oxford Collapse plays a catchy and wonderfully angular song with “Please Visit Your National Parks.”  It’s followed by a song from Sufjan Stevens that sounds NOTHING like Sufjan Stevens, it’s a noisy distorted guitar blast of indie punk.  I’m from Barcelona follows with a supremely catchy horn driven song that would be huge on any college campus.  Aesop Rock comes next with a fantastic song.  I’d heard a lot about Aesop Rock but had never heard him before, and he raps the kind of rap that I like: cerebral and bouncy.  This is followed by Reykjavik! with a crazy, noisy surf-guitar type of song.  It reminds me of some great college rock from the early 90s.

Of Montreal, a band I’ve been hearing about a lot but who I’ve never heard (and didn’t think sounded like this) plays a wonderfully catchy two minute love song that sounds ironic, but which likely isn’t.  The melody is straight out of the Moody Blues’ “Wildest Dreams,” and yet it is still fun and quirky.

There’s a couple instrumentals as well: The Clogs do a cool, mellow instrumental and Explosions in the Sky do one of their typically fantastic emotional tracks.  Also on the disc, The Blow contribute a delightfully witty song and Bill Fox, a singer I’d never heard of (but who has a great article about him in the magazine), really impressed me with his Bob Dylan meets Nico delivery.  The disc ends with an alternate version of a song by Grizzly Bear.

This is definitely my favorite Believer disc thus far.  See the full track listing here.

[READ: Throughout 2009] Schott’s Miscellany 2008

This year’s edition of Schott’s Miscellany is very much like last year’s edition (see that review here).  I mean, it is an almanac after all.  However, it is a wondrous testament to Schott that even though I read every word of the 2008 edition, I was able to read every word of the 2009 edition and not feel like I was duplicating myself very much.

Obviously the news, facts and events of 2008-09 are different from last year.  And since Schott’s writing style is breezy and fun with a hint of sarcasm and amusement thrown in, you don’t get just a list of facts, you get sentences with subtle commentary on the facts.  And it’s a fun way to re-live the past year.  Plus, the Sci, Tech, Net section discusses science stories that sounded really impressive and important which I can’t believe I didn’t hear about at the time. (more…)

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Terry Pratchett–Unseen Academicals (2009)

Posted in Black Sabbath, Corporate skewering, Death, Discworld, Douglas Adams, Dreams, Drinking, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Gods, Magic, Oddities, Project Runway, Racism, Red Dwarf, Religion, Sports, Supernatural, Terry Pratchett, Universities on December 7, 2009| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BLACK SABBATH-Vol. 4 (1972).

When I was younger I liked this Sabbath album a lot more than I do now.  There are some absolutely stellar tracks on here, but most of the songs are a rather peculiar for Black Sabbath.  It showcases ballad-y nature that Ozzy would have for some of his biggest hits twenty years later.

“Wheels of Confusion” opens the disc with a fascinating bluesy sounding guitar solo that turns into a straightforward rocker.  But, as it’s 8 minutes long, there’s a lot of twists and turns.  And it ends with a two and a half minutes of upbeat guitar soloing (with a tambourine keeping the beat!).

“Tomorrow’s Dream” opens with a rocking bendy guitar riff  but in the middle the chorus turns the song into a delicate ballad.  This is followed by “Changes” a full-on piano ballad (!).  It’s catchy, no doubt, and I loved it when I was younger, but I’m not entirely sure it passes the test of time.  This is followed by “FX” which is literally almost two minutes of echoing blips and bleeps, some of which go back and forth on the headphones.  It’s a very strange addition to any disc and is really the perfect example of “filler” unless by some chance this was majorly cutting edge at the time.

This is redeemed by “Supernaut” one of the all-time great Sabbath tunes.  It’s heavy, fast and features a great guitar riff.

“Snowblind” is a another fantastic song.  A great riff, and of course, it’s totally pro-cocaine!  How can you tell?  Well, because at the end of the first verse, you can hear a very unsubtle whisper of “cocaine.”  My, how the band has changed in just a couple of years.  This song also features a ballady mid-section.  It also features an awesome middle bit that rocks very hard (and can be summed as: don’t tell me what to do).  The drugs hadn’t deteriorated Sabbath’s songwriting yet, but give it a couple more records!

“Cornucopia” is one of the weird songs that you find on the second side of a Sabbath album.  It’s a got an awesome slow, doomy opening riff which then turns into a speedy rocker.

When I was kid I really liked “Laguna Sunrise” and I still do.  It’s a pretty acoustic guitar number (with keyboards or strings or something).  After “Changes” you’re not surprised by anything that Sabbath will throw at you, but this song is really shockingly delicate.

“St. Vitus Dance” is probably the most schizophrenic Sabbath song.  The opening guitar riff is so incredibly upbeat, happy and boppy; who knows what will come from it.  And then the verses turn dark and edgy with lyrics about a breakup.  And then the happy guitar bits come back!

The disc ends with “Under the Sun/Everyday Comes and Goes.”  It is once again another wonderfully sludgy guitar riff that turns into a fast rocker (“I don’t want no Jesus freak to tell me what it’s all about!”).  After the verses, you get this wonderfully weird guitar solo that’s like an ascending scale on acid.  Fun!  About three minutes in, it turns into “Everyday…” an uptempo rocker that’s not out of place with the other half of the song, but which does seem like an odd placement.

This disc was strangely experimental for Sabbath.  And, while it’s nice to see them not getting stuck, some of their choices were certainly weird.  And yet all Sabbath fans seem to regard this disc pretty highly (I think it’s the iconic cover that we all remember so fondly).

[READ: December 10, 2009] Unseen Academicals

Terry Pratchett knows football (soccer)??!!  In all the years of Discworld books, I don’ think there has been any mention of football (or even any sport).  Who knew he had a 400 page book about football in him?

Oh, and what is wrong with US book publishers?  Look at the utterly lame US cover at the top here.  First of all, the book is about soccer…why are they reaching for the ball with their hands??  Second, look here at this awesome UK cover by Paul Kidby (the official illustrator of Discworld).  Does he not have publishing rights in the US?

American readers, check out this cover.  It is awesome!  It gives you the whole cast, it gives a wonderful graphic of just what you’d be up against when you play this team.  Look, there’s the Librarian!  And, of course, the drawing is great.  Well, at least we have the internet.

But back to the football.  As with any Pratchett book it’s not just about football.  There is a whole bunch of stereotype-busting, inner-strength growing, pop-culture raspberrying, and general hilarity as well.  Oh, and Rincewind is back!  Hooray! (more…)

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Douglas Coupland–Souvenir of Canada (2002), Souvenir of Canada 2 (2004) & Souvenir of Canada [the movie] (2006)

Posted in Books about music, Books about writers, Boredom, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Collecting, Constellation Records, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Douglas Coupland, Drinking, Drugs, Essays, Fishing, Foreign Books, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), History, Hockey, Hockey Night in Canada, Memoirs, Nanaimo Bar, Nature, Nostalgia, Oddities, Photo Essays, Poutine, Rush, Souvenir of Canada, The New Pornographers, Tindersticks, War on November 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »

socSOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-The Hungry Saw [CST055] (2008).

hungryIt was the releases of this Tindersticks disc (their first in 5 years) on the venerable Constellation Records (in North America) that inspired my trip through their back catalog. I was completely surprised to see them released on Constellation, as the band doesn’t exactly fit with the label’s stereotypical style (although, realistically with the last dozen or so releases, Constellation has really expanded the kind of music they release).

And this is a fantastic Tindersticks release!  There’s not a bad song on the disc. And, even though nothing is as immediately gripping as say “Can We Start Again,” the disc contains some of the band’s strongest songs.  “The Hungry Saw” is simply amazing, both lyrically and in its catchy (yet creepy) chorus.  But the highlight is probably “Boobar, Come Back to Me,” a song that begins slowly and builds gloriously, including a call and response segment that makes this song really swagger.

“Mother Dear” features a strangely comical musical episode.  In an otherwise very mellow piano based track, right in the middle of the song, come slashing, somewhat atonal guitar chords.  It’s as if a more rocking song is trying to overtake the mellow track.  (The coup is rebuffed, though).

The biggest thing to note about the disc is that longtime co-songwriter Dickon has left the band.  And so, some of the co-writing duties have been taken up by David Boulter.  While it is obviously sad that Dickon has left, Staples seems revitalized on this disc, and Boulter’s additions (especially his quirky instrumentals) bring a new point of view to the proceedings.  Also of note is something of a return to the orchestral style (albeit a much more understated version).  However, different songs emphasize different aspects: horns on one, strings on another, but always underscored by the ubiquitous Hammond organ.

It’s not a radical departure or anything like that.  It’s more of a continuation after a well earned vacation.  And it’s certainly their strongest release since their first four.

[READ & WATCHED: October 2009] Souvenir of Canada, Souvenir of Canada 2 & Souvenir of Canada (the movie)

I got the first Souvenir of Canada when it came out.  (I was on a big Coupland kick and may have even bought it in Montreal).  I didn’t get #2 when it came out, probably because I didn’t really invest a lot of effort into the first one.  But after recently reading City of Glass, I wanted to get a little more involved in Coupland’s visual art.  So, I picked up #2 and, while investigating this second book, I discovered that he had made a film of the books, too.

Coupland explains in the introduction that this book is his personal vision of what Canada is like. It is designed for Canadians as something of a nostalgia trip, but it is also something of an introduction to unseen Canada for non-Canadians.  And so, what you don’t get is pictures of mounties and Tim Hortons and other things that fit the stereotypical Canadian bill. Rather, you get things that are significant to Coupland (and maybe the average Canadian born on the West Coast in the 60s). (more…)

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Louis De Bernières–“The Girt Pike” (Prospect, November 2009)

Posted in Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Fishing, Louis De Bernières, Nostalgia, Paul Quarrington, Prospect, Short Story, Summer, The Doors, Tindersticks on November 8, 2009| Leave a Comment »

prospectSOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-can our love… (2001).

loveAfter Simple Pleasure, Tindersticks continued in this looser, less chamber-pop vein.  This disc features more organ fueled songs.  And– in something of a departure–they made many of the songs quite long (two are over seven minutes, one is almost nine!).  You could almost say these are jams, but that would give the wrong impression.

The band still sounds like Tindersticks (there’s no mistaking that voice), but they feel looser, less intense.  Yet they’re still passionate.  In fact, “People Keep Coming Round” and “Can Our Love” are two of their best tracks.  “People” has this really long keyboard section that my wife said sounded like the Doors, and she’s quite right about that.  But it’s more than just a Doors-keyboard solo.  It’s a catchy yet haunting single.

It’s easy to be feel disappointed about the latter Tindertsicks discs because they don’t rival the crazed intensity of their earlier ones.  And yet, Tindersticks is now a different band, playing a different kind of music.  It’s still beautiful, still affecting, it’s just different.

“No Man of the World,” the second to last song is a slow, meandering, deceptively simple song.  It features spoken lyrics and gently sung backing vocals.  And on first listen it’s nothing special, but the more you listen, the more elements you notice: strings, horns, sadness.  It’s really quite moving.

The disc ends with “Chiletime” another deceptively simple song that begins with an organ drone and simple strings.  Staples whispers his way through the first few bars.  But then the track builds to a full band with gorgeous vocals.  Then it slows down as if coming to and end, but it builds once more, this time to a beautiful finish.  It’s a perfect ending to this disc.

[READ: November 3, 2009] “The Girt Pike”

De Bernières wrote Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (which I’ve neither read nor seen the film).  In fact, this is the first story by him that I’ve read, and I’m fascinated by his style.  I don’t know if his other works are like this but I’m rather intrigued by this one.

This is a fairly simply story of a boy going fishing.  (I don’t fish myself, and I don’t really care all that much about fishing, but I’ve gotten a great deal of pleasure out of fishing stories (Paul Quarrington’s Fishing with My Old Guy was a surprise treat)).

The story opens with an endearing style that I would consider almost fairy-tale-like.  (The second sentence does indeed open with “Once upon a time”).  But the words are not of fairy-tales, rather, they reflect a somewhat nostalgic past: when boys fished in ponds with sticks and then threw the sticks to their dogs who splashed in the ponds.  Such an idyllic set up is altered somewhat once the “action” starts with the sentence: “On the morning that concerns us, however….” (more…)

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