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Archive for the ‘Supernatural’ Category

Michelle Tea–Mermaid in Chelsea Creek (2013)

Posted in Adventure, All Songs Considered, Ben Gibbard, Birds, Death, Death Cab For Cutie, Fantasy, Funny (strange), Hey Marseilles, Magic, McSweeney's, Michelle Tea, Pigeons, Supernatural, Trilogy, Violence, YA Books on August 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

mermaSOUNDTRACK: HEY MARSEILLES-Live at the Newport Folk Festival (2013). 

heymar For reasons I’m unclear about, the first two songs (at least the first two listed on the NPR web page, (“To Travels & Trunks” and”Gasworks”) ) are not included in the download.  But we do get the band’s introduction of themselves.  So maybe the NPR list is wrong?  Weirder things have happened.

The band drove all the way from Seattle and are pleased to announce that they are the first band to play the Festival (a nice, if insignificant piece of trivia).

Regardless, we get a solid 35 minute set.  The band opens with “Heart Beats,” a folky song.  Indeed, Hey Marseilles continues the tradition of large bands (6 members at last counting) who play folk music with lots of unexpected(ish) instruments.  But the singer sounds quite a bit like Ben Gibbard.  Indeed that first song sounds like a less commercial Death Cab for Cutie—you keep expecting a big commercial chorus to come but it doesn’t, and there’s something very satisfying about them not giving it to us.

Although the band does sounds quite a bit like DCFC (both in the voice and the arrangements), their instrumentation brings an unfamiliarity to the songs that makes them so intriguing—like when the accordion pops up put of nowhere in “From a terrace.”  Or other songs where strings fill out a song–not in a “look we’re unplugged” sort of way but as  natural part of the song.  I really enjoyed their songs and may track down their CDs (and their cool scarf).

[READ: July 3, 2013] Mermaid in Chelsea Creek

This was the second YA book that McSweeney’s has released.  It is (say it with me) the first book in a trilogy.   And I have to say that I really didn’t like the first 100 pages.

There were a number of small things that kept me interested, but for the most part I found the story pretty dreadful.  On a personal note I really didn’t like that the Chelsea Creek was not revealed to be in the Boston area until very far into the story.  I hated that it was so specific (Chelsea) and yet so generic (which of the dozens of Chelseas was it?).  But more importantly I hated that Sophie (the protagonist) and her friend Ella, play the ‘pass-out” game.  In the game, one of the girls chokes herself until she passes out.  The other girl watches and wakes the first up after about 30 seconds.  This is what they do for fun  This is their cheap high.  And it constitutes a large part of the beginning of the story.  So much so that when her mother finds out about it, she tells her doctor.  And what made it all the crazier was that her doctor reveals that not only did she play the pass out game as  a girl but she is sure her mother did too.  And her mother says yes.  What the fuck?  Oh and her mother is mean and overworked and exhausted and generally always ready to fight with Sophie.

I imagine that if I had another book with me on vacation I would have put this down and read that one instead.  But I pressed on, mostly because when Sophie passed out she saw a mermaid in Chelsea Creek, a filthy sewage filled river.  (The fact that Ella is a germophobe is quite funny, especially when Sophie falls into the creek when she passes out).  That kept me interested as did Dr Chen (the above doctor).  Because the Doctor keeps pigeons on her roof and she has tied flutes to some of their tails so that they make beautiful music when they fly.  This scene was so good–so briefly magical–that I forgave the rest of the book and gave it a blank slate.  I was bummed when the pigeons went away, but was delighted when they came back a little later, once the magic began for real.

And there is magic aplenty.  Especially as Sophie learns more and more about her family and neighborhood. (more…)

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Max Barry–Lexicon (2013)

Posted in Adventure, All Songs Considered, Billy Bragg, Death, End of the World, Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls, Magic, Max Barry, Poets, Supernatural, T.S. Eliot, Violence, Virginia Woolf, W.B. Yeats, Yuck! on August 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

SlexOUNDTRACK: FRANK TURNER & THE SLEEPING SOULS Live at the Newport Folk Festival (2013).

frakWhenever NPR streams and saves festivals shows, I like to check out the bands I love (of course), but I also check out some of the bands I’d never heard of before.  And sometimes it leads to a fantastic discovery.  Like Frank Turner.  I had no idea who he was, but he was described as folk-punk which is quite accurate.  He reminds me of Billy Bragg in his younger, harder days.  Turner is British, he has a very thick accent when he sings and while he is nowhere near as political as Bragg, he treads in that same line of folkiness.

His lead off track, “Four Simple Words” (the words are “I Want to Dance”) begins as a folkie song, but it quickly morphs into a rollicking stomper (louder than most bands at Newport, he theorizes).  But a song like “Try This at Home” seems to speak to his overall ethos—music for the people by the people:

Because there’s no such thing as rock stars There’s just people who play music
And some of them are just like us And some of them are dicks
So quick, turn off your stereo Pick up that pen and paper
Yeah, you could do much better Than some skinny half-arsed English country singer

There are a few more specifically pointed messages like “Glory Hallelujah,” whose chorus goes “There is no-o-o God, so clap your hands together.”  As well as a funny (but not really) song which he introduces as being written because he read Gene Simmons’ autobiography.  Simmons says he slept with 4,600 some women which he knows because he has taken a Polaroid of each one.  Turner is appalled “what an ass” and wrote “Wherefore Art Thou, Gene Simmons” as a response.

But the majority of songs are about love and life, going home again and playing music.  And, in this live setting Turner is fantastic—getting the crowd to sing along, having great banter and being a wonderful showman.

The final song is a great sing-along with the simple but effective chorus of: “I won’t sit down and I won’t shut up.  And most of all I will not grow up.”  I’m totally enjoying Turner’s music and now I’m going to have to check out his actual releases (he has four or five).  See more about him at his website.

[READ: July 20, 2013] Lexicon.

Virginia Woolf has gotten a hold of a word which has caused untold destruction in a small town in Australia.  W.B. Yeats has sent T.S. Eliot and a non-poet named Wil to get the word back and, if possible to kill Virginia Woolf.

Intrigued?  Yeah me too.

I saw this book in Barnes & Noble and was really excited that Barry had a new book out.  And when I pointed it out to Sarah she said , “I already have a hold on it.”  So, when it came in I took it from her pile and now it has to go back before she gets a chance to read it.

Imprinted in the crazy cover image are a series of odd characters and amid them it says 4 why did you do it.  I was trying to figure out if there was more to this secret message, but there isn’t.  However, it is a clue to what lies inside.

I guess in the grand scheme of things, the story is pretty simple (if not a little confusing).  What I laid out above is the skeletal outline; however, Barry interweaves the story with past and future (and a whole lot of mind control) and he begins the book right in the middle of utter chaos. (more…)

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Maile Meloy–The Apprentices (2013)

Posted in Adventure, Communists, Culture Shock, Ebony Bones, Magic, Maile Meloy, Ofra Haza, Supernatural, Trilogy, War, YA Books on July 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

apprenticesSOUNDTRACK: EBONY BONES-“I See I Say” (2013).

ebonyI don’t really know what to imagine about this album from this one song.

The song opens with a skittery sampled vocal chant of “I See I Say” bouncing around.  It has a vaguely Indian sound to it (and reminds me of Ofra Haza).

After a bout a minute the voices slow to a halt which made me think something new was afoot.  But no, the voices start again, with more layers of keyboards and what is more or less a lead vocal keening away.

Then there are some actual sung words (and people chanting I See I Say), making the song sound fuller and fuller.

At first it didn’t really sound like a song so much as an introduction to something, but after a few listens, I can hear that there’s a lot more going on than I realized.   I just can’t imagine what the rest of the album will sound like.

[READ: June 30, 2013] The Apprentices

This is the second book in a trilogy (what is it about trilogies?) that began with The Apothecary.

This book is set two years after the action of the first book.  The kids are 16 now and have not seen each other since. (The book helpfully fills in the things that we have all forgotten since we read the first book, like that Benjamin’s father gave Janie and everyone a forgetting potion so that they would stay out of danger).

Now Janie is back in America, attending a private school (on a scholarship) while her parents are back making movies.  I would have loved to see more of Janie’s school, believe it or not, but the little we do see if enough to set the action in motion.  Janie, a very smart girl and a whiz at math, is accused of cheating by her roommate and (sort of) friend.  The friend is jealous of Janie because her dad keeps talking about how smart Janie is (and consequently how un-smart his own daughter is).

Obviously Janie is upset, but she is more upset because she has been working on an experiment in the chemistry lab.  She has been trying to remove the salt from salt water.  She has been getting memories of her time with Benjamin and one of the things she remembered was the desalinator.  She has been piecing together the formula and has just had a breakthrough.  But what will happen to her stuff (which is actually the school’s stuff?)

Benjamin has also been sending Janie cryptic messages.  She finally realizes that there is a code in which he is letting her know where he is.  It turns out Benjamin and his father are in the jungle saving people. Benjamin’s father has been using his apothecary skills to create some healing potions that are saving lives in the war-torn jungle.  But their mission is secret and Benjamin’s father doesn’t know that Benjamin is communicating with her. (more…)

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Larry Correia–Hard Magic (Book I of The Grimnoir Chronicles) (2011) [audiobook 2011–Bronson Pinchot]

Posted in Alternate Reality, Audiobooks, Bronson Pinchot, Death, Decadence, Drinking, End of the World, Fantasy, Flannery O'Connor, Gangsters, Larry Correia, Noir, Oddities, Perfect Strangers, Steampunk, Supernatural, Technology on June 14, 2013| 3 Comments »

[LISTENED TO: June 7, 2013] Hard Magichardmagic

My sister-in-law Karen raved about this book and then gave it to me for Christmas.  And holy cow.  I.  LOVED.  IT.

And before I even get into the story I have to say that a major reason why I loved it is because of the reader–Bronson Pinchot.  Yes, Balki from Perfect Strangers.  Yes, that goofy “foreigner” from the show has an utterly mesmerizing speaking voice.  It is amazingly deep–when he first started speaking the menacing drawl of Jake Sullivan, I was blown away.  And then he pulled out a couple dozen more characters, women and men–German, Japanese, Okies, military men, New Yorkers.  He brought this story to absolutely real life.

I have made a point of looking for anything else that he reads (although I see that he mostly reads books about war (which is not my thing))–but I see a Flannery O’Connor in there and–YES–he reads book two of the Grimnoir series (called Spellbound) and it’s already out!

Okay enough about Pinchot.  No, not enough.  He was stellar!

Okay, now enough.  What’s the story about?  Well, the best thing is that the story itself is also amazing.  It is set in the 1930s, in an alternate reality Untied States.  And in this reality, random people have been gifted with magic.  And there’s all kinds of magic–fades (people who can walk through walls); torches (people who can make and stop fires), mouths (people who can put thoughts in your head); brutes (people who are crazy strong and who can actually bend gravity to their will) and movers (people who can jump from place to place).  There’s also healers and cursers and cogs–really smart people–and other with more mysterious powers.

Each chapter opens with a quote from a real (in our world) person talking about how the magic or the people with magic–the Actives–impacted society.  So Einstein was a cog, and military leaders used brutes to fight in wars, etc. (more…)

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Adam Gidwitz–A Tale Dark and Grimm (2011)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Adam Gidwitz, Canadian Music, Children's Books, Crash Test Dummies, Death, Fables, Fantasy, Supernatural, Violence on June 7, 2013| 2 Comments »

gidwitzSOUNDTRACK: “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-“Headline News” (1994).

HeadlinenewsThis single was released to coincide with Al’s box set Permanent Record (the only other place the song appeared at the time).  It’s a parody of Crash Test Dummies’ “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm.”

The song was very funny in 1994.  Now, twenty (holy cow) years later, it loses some, well, really all of its topicality.  If people even remember the subjects [Singapore caning American delinquent Michael Fay, figure skater Tonya Harding’s then-boyfriend attacking her rival Nancy Kerrigan, and Lorena Bobbitt severing her husband’s penis with a knife] that just goes to show that al was right in joking that he “wanted to write a song about these people because [he didn’t] think they’re getting quite enough media attention.”

The second track is an “Alternate Mix” of “Christmas at Ground Zero,” one of Al’s better Christmas songs.  I’m not sure what is Alternate about it, and I was really hoping that it would include the voice of Ronald Reagan, like it did in the video, but I suspect even Al has limits of access.  Nevertheless, the song sounds a lot better than the original, so there’s nothing wrong with that.

[READ:April 20, 2013] A Tale Dark and Grimm

Sarah gave me this story to read because she loved it.  It’s a re-imagining of Hansel and Gretel.

The narrator tells us that we we don’t really know the original story all, that’s it (and many fairy tales) are much much darker than one expects.  I know that Grimm’s stories are more violent than the versions we tell our kids, but I don’t know exactly how different these stories really are.  As such, I don’t know how much of the this Gidwitz is making up.  In many respects, that doesn’t matter at all because the story is great either way, but it is a point of curiosity wondering whether or not these stories really did say this back then.

Anyhow, this story begins with bold print, bold print in which the narrator talks to the reader directly: “Once upon a time fairy tales were awesome.”  And he prepares to tell us about Faithful Johannes, the precursor to Hansel and Gretel.  We learn how Hansel and Gretel’s parents met (primarily through thievery and greed) and were eventually married (despite the literal curses against them).  It turned out that Faithful Johannes, their servant, stayed with them all along, as all of the curses came true.  But then Johannes died, and then it was revealed that if the king cut off Hansel and Gretel’s heads their blood would restore Johannes to life.  So he did.

Hansel and Gretel came back to life (obviously) but they were so distraught when they overheard what had happened to them (they didn’t remember and of it) they ran away.  And that’s how they met the witch. (more…)

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David Byrne–Arboretum (2001)

Posted in Anachronisms, Consumerism, David Byrne, David Byrne, Demons, Funny (strange), Gods, Greed, McSweeney's, Religion, Short Books, Supernatural, Talking Heads, War on May 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »

arborSOUNDTRACK: DAVID BYRNE-uh oh (1992).

uhohI received this CD free when it came out (radio station perk), and I listened to it a few times, but not really all that much.  I never really thought that much about it because I didn’t really like the cover–it looked too babyish.  It’s been a while since I listened to it and I am delighted at what a good, solid, Talking Heads-ish album this is (with David Byrne, you never know exactly what you’ll get from a record, but this is poppy).

“Now I’m Your Mom” opens with an early 90s funky electronic bass and some crazy guitar sounds.  But as soon as the bridge kicks in, the song is pure Byrne/Talking Heads.  And that world music style chorus means that this song could have been huge (even if it is about a transvestite or transgendered person–I didn’t listen that carefully).  However, the extended section at the end makes the song feel a little long.  “Girls on My Mind” is a strange (but good) song from start to finish—a weird cheesy synth sound pervades the song, and yet once again, it’s very Byrne—especially the crazy singing of the chorus.

“Something Ain’t Right” opens with an odd chant but then turns very conventional—with choral voices giving big oohs.  “She’s Mad” opens as a kind of sinister song.  And yet, after some verses about her being mad, the chorus is as bright as anything else on the record—a very schizophrenic song.  “Hanging Upside Down” has a very commercial Talking Heads Feel, like “Stay Up Late.”

“Twistin’ in the Wind” has more of those big choruses of voices to “well well well” up the song.  “The Cowboy Mambo” has another weird sound that circulates through the song, but it’s got a good beat and a great chorus and it would be fun to dance to.  “Monkey man” is a horn-heavy track that opens in a sinister vein once again.  “A Million Miles Away” just gets stuck with you and makes you want to sing along.  “Somebody” ends the disc with more Latin horns and rhythms.  It’s a fun song, and a good ending.

Overall, this is a surprisingly good record.  All of the songs are a little long–Byrne songs should really max out around 4 minutes.  For that extra time, he either tends to repeat himself or add superfluous codas that drag out the end.  But aside from that, this is a real treat, especially for Talking Heads fans.

[READ: May 20 2013] Arboretum

The back of the book describes this as a collection of enigmatic, enchanting mental maps.

And that is kind of what the book is.  It is a collection of drawings–tree and branch-style drawings mostly–that endeavor to map relationships.  But the subject matter is crazily diverse–oftentimes nonsensical or at the very least unparseable.  The good news is that many of the drawings have an explanatory text in the back of the book.  I acknowledge that ideally the drawings should make sense without needing an explanation, but the explanations were really useful–they really give you the frame of mind that Byrne was trying to explain through the pictures. (more…)

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Tony Abbott–The Weird Zone series Books 1-8 (1996-1997)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Children's Books, Funny (ha ha), Get Smart, Metallica, Nirvana, R.E.M., Short Books, Supernatural, Suzanne Vega, The B-52's, The Beach Boys, The Future, Threats, Tony Abbott, Wayne's World, Yuck!, Zombies on March 31, 2013| Leave a Comment »

wz1 SOUNDTRACK: “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-Off the Deep End (1992).

Weird_Al_Yankovic_-_Off_the_Deep_EndIt was this “Weird Al” album that brought me back into the fold.  His parody of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (“Smells Like Nirvana”) was hilarious.  And the video was even better.  It was enough for me to get this album (the cover of which even parodied Nevermind) and was a huge seller for Al.  This great cover makes the rest of the parodies seem so strangely one-hit wonderish (which is, of course Al’s bread and butter), but when you read the other parodied songs, it’s so amusingly “who?”

We have  “I Can’t Watch This” (“Can’t Touch This,” MC Hammer).  This parody is pretty funny as his TV stuff is usually very good.  “The White Stuff” (“The Right Stuff” New Kids on the Block–really??) is very very funny.  It works on a parody level and it works so well internally including the way the O-O-O-OREO fits in in both respects.  It’s probably his best overall parody for a song whose original I dislike.  “Taco Grande” is a parody of Rico Suave” (does anyone remember that song?).  This song also happens to be a favorite of mine–the way he says “Taco” in an oddly sexy way makes me laugh every time.  And, internally it works really well, too.  “The Plumbing Song” is a parody of Milli Vanilla.  While the plumbing  jokes are good, the actual chorus, the “punchline,” really doesn’t work.  Just like Milli Vanilli.

The originals are quite strong on this disc, too.  “Trigger Happy” is a Beach Boys style parody which actually is quite relevant in the big gun debate of 2013.  “I Was Only Kidding” is one of his anti-romantic songs, in which he says all of these romantic things and then takes it back.  It’s pretty funny, even with the Wayne’s World joke.  Wikipedia suggests that it’s a style parody of Tonio K, but I don’t know who that is or what he sounds like.  “When I Was Your Age” sounds a lot like a song from the UHF soundtrack–that same musical style, I wonder if the band works on the music together. It’s a funny song that’s all about old people yelling about how easy young people have it.  It’s a good one.

“Airline Amy” is an original song about a stewardess which doesn’t really do much for me.  But the final song on the disc “You Don’t Love me Anymore” is just outstanding.  It’s a funny acoustic ballad, an anti-romantic song with some very funny lines.  The video parodies Extreme’s “More Than Words,” even though the original song wasn’t a parody of that song (but since people thought it was he made the video reflect it). The video is awesome.

And of course, the polka medley is wonderful.  There’s such a weird mix of songs, and this one really dates the record (not in a bad way).  The previous medleys mixed a lot of different eras, but the songs in this one are of a very specific time: “Cradle of Love,” “Tom’s Diner,” “Love Shack,” “Pump Up the Jam,” “Losing My Religion” (the second R.E.M. nod from Al), “Do Me” (I don’t know the original but I love that he throws in a yodel at the end of it), “Cherry Pie,” “I Touch Myself,” “Dr Feelgood” and the unforgettable “Ice Ice Baby.”  It May be the only place where Metallica and “The Humpty Dance” play next to each other, too.

In a final nod to Nirvana, Al tossed in a 5 second piece of noise after ten minutes of silence which he called “Bite Me” (because Nevermind had a very noisy song called “Endless, Nameless” after some 30 minutes of silence).  My friend Matt has a very funny story about not knowing that “Bite Me” would come on and getting the crap scared out of him by it.  Al makes us laugh in many different ways.

[READ: February and March 2013] The Weird Zone series

wz2Readers will know that Clark and I love Tony Abbott.  We keep looking for his older, somewhat harder to find series, and this past month the library came through with The Weird Zone, eight books set in the small town of Grover’s Mill.  There’s a Secret Government UFO testing base at the north of the city, a dinosaur graveyard to the west of the city and Humongous Horror Movie Studio to the east.  Living in this weird triangle between these oddities can mean only one thing–Grover’s Mill, is known to the kids as the Weird Zone (their school is even call W.Reid Elementary).  The adults in town don’t seem to realize what’s going on (although, clearly they must) are called Zoners.

The Humongous Horror Movie studio is run by Mr Vickers.  His kids, Sean and Holly, are two of the five protagonist.  Although it’s a little funny that in book one, Sean is away at camp.  Mr Vickers makes a horror movie every week–they are terrible  but he shows them at the drive in and people come (perhaps because of the huge searchlights he waves around through the sky).  But having this crazy creature shop in town means that things are very rarely normal anyway.

In Book One, Zombie Surf Commandos from Mars!, Liz Duffey, Holly Vickers and Jeff Ryan are enjoying a day at the beach of Lake Lake (named after someone named Lake) when a tidal wave surges forth from the water.  Riding that wave are a bunch of Martian zombies.  They march after the kids looking for brains! (more…)

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Faith Erin Hicks–Friends with Boys (2012)

Posted in Alex Lifeson, Canadian Content, Deftones, Faith Erin Hicks, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Marriage Trouble, Set at School, Short Books, Supernatural, YA Books on March 14, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 fwboysSOUNDTRACK: DEFTONES-Koi No Yokan (2012).

koiThis is the disc that got me back into the Deftones.  My friend Cindy told me about an upcoming show (which just passed and which I could not attend, boo), and since I didn’t know that had a new album out, I ordered it and was really really impressed by it.  Diamond Eyes was an amazing culmination of all of their previous successes and Koi No Yokan (which means “Premonition Of Love”) takes it one step further.  They’re moving away somewhat from the really heavy sounds, and yet there is heaviness aplenty, both in Chino’s screams and in Stephen’s guitars.  Indeed, the album opens with big loud guitars–letting you know that they can still rock.

Then “Swerve City” shifts to cool swirling verses.   It’s not as extreme as earlier songs but it’s one of my favorites that they’ve done. The piercing guitar solo is great.  “Romantic Drams” has some of their more complex guitar lines mixed with a vocal line.  The bridge is bright and leads to a really catchy chorus.  There’s some really tight stop-on-a-dime moments as well.  “Leathers” pounds open with some bludgeoning chords and Chino’s screams (see, they haven’t gone soft), and then a great soaring bridge–a great hard/soft song, especially when the chorus kicks in at it’s almost inquisitive.  “Poltergeist” opens with hand claps and then some heavy loud guitars and bass.

“Entomed” presents another beautiful shimmery guitar introduction.  It’s one of their most delicate songs with the soaring chorus “shapes and colors are all I see.”  I can’t believe this song wasn’t a hit.  Why didn’t they release that as a single?  “Graphic Nature” has some great angular guitars but it smooths out into a cool song with some great basslines in it (Sergio Vega shines on this disc and even helped write some of the songs).  “Tempest” is one of those great songs where Chino sings at a different pace than the music–which I always like.  There’s a big heavy section about 4 minutes in that gives the song an extra boost.  “Gauze” has a heavy off-kilter guitar riff (with some really interesting keyboard blasts–Frank Delgado proving indispensable).  There’s a dark bridge and splashes of really heavy guitar throughout.

“Rosemary” is nearly seven minutes long and is has multiple parts.  It opens with some great echoey guitars.  And then the heavier guitars kick in chugging along while Chino’s voice soars over it.  By about five minutes the song gets really heavy and chromatic, rocking along until it suddenly stops and is replaced by a gentle guitar and keyboard  passage.  “Goon Squad” opens similarly to how “Rosemary” ends (in fact the end of “Rosemary” feels more like the beginning of “Goon Squad”) with quietly strummed guitar and swooshing keyboards.  There’s some cool weird screams that are layered in the mix of sounds.  Late in the song there’s a simple guitar solo that reminds me of Alex Lifeson.  Complex drumming (Abe Cunningham is still amazing) opens a very jazzy flavored final song “What Happened to You?”  Chino’s falsetto is in full effect and the song feels like a springboard to new styles of exploration on future records.

This album is really amazing.  It may not be as diverse as White pony but it’s more cohesive and it really highlights what a staggering good band Deftones have become.  I’m rather bummed that I missed that show.

[READ: March 13, 2013] Friends with Boys

Sarah had this book lying around for a while.  I had meant to read it because it sounded cool (and she said it was very good), but I never did.  Then she grabbed it again because it’s on a list of books she wants to read.  It was sitting on the table and I realized that the author (whose name is very very hard to read on the cover) was Faith Erin Hicks who wrote Zombies Calling, a book I enjoyed very much.  Now she’s on First Second Books (a favorite publisher of graphic novels) with this really great story.

I have one gripe I need to get out of the way.  The title is terrible for the story.  According to the drawings in the back of the book, it appears the original title was The Education of Maggie McKay which was an overdone idea at this point, but which actually makes more sense than Friends with Boys.  The title made me think that the story was about a tomboy who gets older and realizes that she can’t hang out with boys the same way.  That is certainly a part of the story, but the full story is far more complex–a girl who has been homeschooled all her life finally goes to high school, where she learns to make friends.  Oh, and there’s a ghost following her around too.  So you see, Friends with Boys, while an engaging title I think does it a disservice.

But that’s neither here nor there.  Because the story is really excellent. (more…)

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Bannister & Nykko–The ElseWhere Chronicles Book Four: The Calling (2009) & Book Five: The Parting (2011) [translated 2010/2011]

Posted in Bannister, Boredom, Carol Klio Burrell, Children's Books, Fantasy, Fears, Garbage, Nykko, Short Books, Supernatural on February 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »

elsewhere4SOUNDTRACK: GARBAGE-Not Your Kind of People (2012).

notyourkinddAfter Bleed, I had basically given up on Garbage.  And they had given up as well, so it made the breakup easier.  For seven years they stayed away, but in 2012 the band reunited and released Not Your Kind of People.  I wasn’t planning to get it–two great albums and two very mediocre albums l leave a listener with a tough decision   But I heard good things–a return to form, less dance more rock and I gave in.

And it was a good choice.  The slickness is still there, which makes sense given who we are dealing with, but it feels more powerful than recent albums and, even better, Manson seems angrier which always makes her vocals better.

“Big Bright World” could have been a hit (for a new band) although it’s a little generic.  “Blood for Poppies” returns to that good grungy guitar sound and yet with its “Wo Ho Ohs” it also has pop song trappings.  “Control” is big and loud with some interesting sounds thrown on top.  It’s probably the closest to 2.0  Even the chorus is very old school Garbage, something they seemed to shy away from on the last two albums.

“Not Your Kind of People is a slow ballady type song but it stands above their recent ballads–the song is cleaner and darker, much more interesting.  And given how sweet the backing vocals of the chorus sound, I’m surprised I like it as much I do.  “Felt” has a real “Stupid Girl” feel to it, except for the poppy bridge.  I don’t like the end where she repeats the Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh bit, but that’s just something I dislike about pop music in general.  “I Hate Love” brings in all of the glitches and electronics that the band uses so effectively, and despite the retro-90s feel of that, it really adds to the music.  “Sugar” is a beautiful slow song. The kind that, when they do it well, sounds great.

“Battle in Me”  is almost a great song.  The guitar builds and then stops short–it worked so well on “Supervixen” but sounds just too sterile here–the technology too crisp or something   But “Man on a Wire” does everything right–the guitars, Shirley’s screaming/singing, the rough guitars–it’s a shame this is buried so far down on the album.  “Beloved Freak” is a nice closer although as I complained from “Special” quoting someone else’s song in your song is cool once, but dong it again sounds lazy. So here we get her ending the song with a line from “This Little light of Mine” which doesn’t work and rather than making you smile like it did on Special it makes you go, “Huh?”  Plus as anyone who ever wrote a paper knows, never end with someone else’s words!

Still, this is a nice return to creative excitement from the band.  And while it never reaches the majesty of their first two albums it comes close to some of their past glories.

[READ: February 1, 2013] The ElseWhere Chronicles Book Four and Five

After a hiatus, Bannister & Nykko return with what feels like a new version of The Elsewhere Chronicles.  The look of the art is slightly different.  It’s clearly the same artist but the lines and angles look a little different on the characters–just a wee bit harsher.  It’s odd.  But it shows that things are a little different now.

The setting is nine moths after the end of book three.  Max has not spoken to any of the others since the lat book when his mother slapped him. Indeed, he’s been hanging around with his brother and his brother’s friends who are no good (especially to Max).  But Theo and Noah had rescued a bunch of things from Grandpa Gabe’s house.  They stored them safely somewhere before the house was demolished.  Meanwhile, Rebecca has been ill and hasn’t seen any of them.  She believes that the illness was caused in the other world and knows she needs to return there to get better.

Max is having a hard time with his new gang  They don’t respect him at all and he actually hates hanging around with them all.  In fact they just kicked him out of their gang and he is sulking when he believes he sees Rebecca.  Could she really have returned?  He follows her as she goes to her grandpa’s house.  She starts to break down when she sees that it was demolished.  She’s about to despair when and old friend sees her and gives her comfort.

Noah and Theo show her that they have Gabe’s possessions.  And they show her that the have figured out how to use the machine.  So they reactivate the passageway and the three of them return to the other world.  Before we can really see what happens over there, Max heads off to the hiding place.  He also passes through the passageway where he runs into Gabe who (after threatening to kill Max) offers to drive him to where Rebecca and the boys must be.

They arrive just as Rebecca and friends sneak into a cave.  Gabe says that the cave leads to nothing but danger.  And as the book ends, we see that that is true…. (more…)

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Bannister & Nykko–The ElseWhere Chronicles Book Three: The Master of Shadows (2008) [translated 2009]

Posted in Bannister, Carol Klio Burrell, Children's Books, Fantasy, Fears, Nykko, Short Books, Supernatural, The Amoeba People on February 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

ElsewhereBk3_C1SOUNDTRACK:  THE AMOEBA PEOPLE-“The Geologists Are Coming” (2012).

geologistThis is, “a special audio poem from The Amoeba People in honor of those hard-working scientists who carry tiny hammers and chip at the crust.”  It’s a very simple rap and drum song about Geologists (of course).  The middle section gives a nice alphabetic breakdown of the letters of the word.

But the best part of the song is clearly the chorus which is very very catchy.

The problems (such as they are) with the song are these: it’s very very short (under two minutes) and it could use some extra kind of musical sound to it–maybe a five minute version with guitars is  in order.  But, even without the guitars, the song is fun to sing along to:

[READ: January 21, 2013] The ElseWhere Chronicles Book Three

Had I known that the series would come to a major halt with book three (and then resume a year later) I would have included Book Three with 1 & 2.  As it stands, Book Three gives what would be a decent but unsatisfying conclusion to the story, although since it ends with The End…? readers may have been not too upset by the conclusion.

The book opens with Rebecca, Max, Noah, and Theo are reunited and taking pictures of themselves in their elsewhere location (although the one just shows them on a beach–not really proof of anything otherworldly (other photos do show otherworldly scenes).  They find a boat and sail across the sea.  But in the process their mynah bird (the one who alerts them to t he presence of danger) is killed by a seagull.

They land in a village where thy are given gifts (we later see a statue that looks a lot like Rebecca o their grounds).  They find their way to a cave where Grandpa Gabe had a lot of his supplies (and which was currently inhabited by a very large and scary creature.  They find a map and instructions about how to jump between worlds.  But that night they are attacked by the Shadow Creatures and even see the Master of Shadows himself.  During the confrontation Doleann returns to assist but Ilvanna, recognizing someone in the shadow spirit, embraces it, which kills her instantly.  Doleann says that Minervale the dragon is about to give birth to two dragons, which will help in their fight against the Master of Shadows.   (more…)

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