Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Douglas Coupland–Player One: What Is to Become of Us: A Novel in Five Hours (2010)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Cars, CBC Radio 1, Death, Douglas Coupland, End of the World, Environmentalism, Technology, The Future, The Tragically Hip, Violence on May 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »

PlayerOne_Coupland

SOUNDTRACK: THE TRAGICALLY HIP-Now for Plan A (2012).

hip man

This is the latest Tragically Hip record and it bounces back from the more country feel of We Are the Same and provides eleven solid rocking songs (two of which are actually ballads and not rocking at all but are still good).  “At Transformation” starts with a big bass notes and some feedback, like an alternative indie rocker, but as soon as Gord Downie’s voice comes in it is unmistakably Hip.  This is one of their rockier songs and shows that they are back in fine form.

I recently wrote about “Man Machine” and “Now for Plan A” but I think they both work better in the context of the record.  “Man Machine” contrasts nicely with “At Transformation” and “Plan A” gives the album a chance to relax before the more rocking second half.  “The Lookahead” is the other duet with Sarah Harmer, although I fear she may be a little underutilized here.  It’s a great big chorused song that The Hip do so well.

“We Want To Be It” has a recurring “drip drip” section that I find mesmerizing.  I like the way drip drip turns into click click and then cricket and how it is alternately whispered and screamed.  I’ve never really heard a song where words were used in this way before.

I love the way “About This Map” starts slow but adds a great bridge/chorus that adds a lot of tension.  Take Forever” is a straightforward rocker which along with “The Modern Spirit” and “Streets Ahead” really exemplify the modern sound of the Tragically Hip–simple rockers with big choruses and thoughtful lyrics.  On the other end of the spectrum, “Done and Done” is a simple ballad that works nicely as the song before the closer.  “Goodnight Attawapiskat” (an aboriginal settlement in Northern Ontario) is the kind of amazing minor key, could-be-an epic that Hip fans always love.  It’s scaled down to 4 minutes, but it lets us know that they still have this kind of song in them.

The Hip will never release another record like Fully Completely or Day for Night and while there is something sad about that, it’s nice to see a band evolving and modifying their sound.  This album isn’t going to blow anyone away, but it is a solid collection of great songs.

[READ: May 15, 2013] Player One

I didn’t really understand what a CBC Massey Lecture was.  It was kind of explained, but I was confused how his lecture would have been a full length novel.  And while it is described as a novel in five hours, I doubt his lecture lasted five hours (the story takes place in real time over five hours, but surely no one would have listened to him read for five hours).  Well, thanks to Wikipedia: Each of the book’s five chapters was delivered as a one hour lecture in a different Canadian city: Vancouver on October 12, Regina on October 14, Charlottetown on October 19, Ottawa on October 25 and ending in Toronto on October 29. The lectures were broadcast on CBC Radio One’s Ideas, November 8–12.   Coupland felt that “a narrative seemed like the most efficient and accessible way of putting forth a large number of propositions about life in the year 2010.”

So this turns out to be a story that takes place over five hours, although like many stories with this conceit there are flashbacks (how could there not be).  There are five main characters: Karen, Luke, Rick, Rachel, and Player One.  Although Player One is a confusing character who may or may not really exist.

Karen is a divorced mom and has decided to travel across the country (from Winnipeg to Toronto) to meet a man in an airport bar for a possible fling.  She’s not proud of it but she thinks, why the hell not–she still feels good about herself.  In fact, on the airplane a boy takes some pictures of her with his phone, because she looks pretty hot.  And in the last one she gives him the finger.  (The whole reality of that–that someone may take a picture of you anywhere for any reason is pretty bizarre).  She arrives in the airport bar where she meets Rick, the bartender. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Christa Wold–“So Who Could I Tell the Story To” (Harper’s, March 2013)

Posted in Christa Wold, Damion Searls, Deftones, Excerpt, Fears, Harper's, Pink Floyd, Spies, Technology, Tool, Translation on February 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Harpersmaerch13SOUNDTRACK: DEFTONES-White Pony (2000).

Iwhitepony had forgotten how much I loved this album when it came out.  It’s been a while since I listened to it but it still sounds great.  I remembered thinking Around the Fur was the album that blew me away but it proved to be White Pony.  I have the “limited edition” red cover for whatever that’s worth (not much really, although I did get a bonus song).  This album really explores their more alternative side, with quiet guitars and very non-metal sounding songs including some trip-hop drums on a track.  But there are three or four really heavy songs showing they’re not giving up their heavy roots by any means.  It’s a really accomplished and complex album and is definitely a high point in alt-rock.

The album starts with “Fieticeira” which has a cool alt guitar sound (Stephen Carpenter really displays an amazing range on this album) and some lurching verses.  The choruses get big and loud (in the way that the Foo Fighters do now), although there is a weird noisy section that keeps it from being a totally polished track.  “Digital Bath” is a dark creepy song where the guitars are nearly as menacing as Chino Moreno’s whispered voice.  The drums are actually the loudest instrument and you can hear how intricate the Deftones drumming can be.  I haven’t mentioned the other members in the other two write ups and shame on me.  Abe Cunningham’s drumming is great–far beyond most metal drummers.  But when the bridge kicks in the song lifts up and by the chorus it’s a big vocalled song.  “Elite” shows that the Deftones haven’t given up their heavy side–it’s a loud screaming distorted fast thrasher.  It never lets up and by the end the voice is distorted almost beyond human sounds.  “RX Bath” is one of my favorite songs on the disc.  It’s slow but with a cool slinky bass (Chi Cheng, always outstanding).  “Street Carp” is a short song–with loud guitars for the verses and a creepy slow chorus that I’ve always loved: “Here’s my new address…six six four oh I forget.”

“Teenager” is the biggest surprise  it has a slow acoustic guitars and a kind of trip hop drum beat with glitchy effects.  It’s followed by “Knife Party” a song that opens with flanged guitars until the big chords crash in.  It’s probably their most commercial sounding song yet, except when after the second chorus Rodleen Getsic starts singing a wild vocal solo (like a crazed version of Pink Floyd’s “Great Gig in the Sky”), some of the notes she hits are inhuman.  “Korea” returns to the heavy dropped D sound with big noisy guitars and screams.  It’s one of their mist abrasive tracks.

“Passenger” is one of two songs that’s over 6 minutes long.  It’s a duet with Maynard from Tool–it’s unusual how their voices are so similar  They don’t sound alike but they have that same wavery tenor and vulnerability   It’s a perfect match.  “Change (In the House of Flies)” starts as a slow slinky song with a big chorus (and a great chorus of Ah ahs which somehow make the song seem even more claustrophobic.  It proves to be surprisingly catchy.  “Pink Maggit” ends the disc proper with a beautifully, agonizingly slow guitar and vocal intro–the guitars are buzzy and slow and sound almost out of tune (but aren’t).  Chino’s voice strains itself before the song proper starts.  I love songs like this when the chorus does one thing and the vocals play a slightly different melody (as if he;s singing a minor note and the guitars are playing a  major note), it’s very cool and a little spine tingly. At seven minutes this is a wonderfully claustrophobic alt rocker.   The album ends with what sounds like a heart beat (again, another Pink Floyd nod).

The red version has a bonus track called “The Boy’s Republic,” a big heavy song that encapsulates a lot of the album down into one track–the great vocal/guitar interplay, swelling chorus and interesting interplay of the instruments.  Even though it’s clearly a bonus song (you don’t have a song that ends with a slow heartbeat and not have it actually end your album), it fits in perfectly with the set and is a real treat.

Even though this album is 13 years old it still sounds fresh and amazing.  It really is a masterpiece.

[READ: February 25, 2013] “So Who Could I Tell the Story To”

According to Harper’s this is an excerpt from City of Angels: Or, the Overcoat of Dr. Freud.  It was translated by Damion Searls.

The excerpt begins in the middle of a question: “–the story that now needed to be told, even though it wasn’t a story at all?”  A very strange opening to be sure, and not as compelling as one might want.  And that was how I felt about this whole thing.  I wanted to be more excited by it but I never was.

There was something confusing about the whole setup.  The narrator is talking to Francesco.  But the narrator is talking about and apparently to “you.”  So there are lots of you’s floating around but we also know she’s talking to someone.  And while it’s all about clandestine behavior, the whole proceeding was confusing. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Jonathan Ames–“#37 Guy Bleeding All Over Skype” (Harper’s, March 2013)

Posted in Deftones, Harper's, Jonathan Ames, Korn, Sepultura, Soulfly, Technology on February 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Harpersmaerch13SOUNDTRACK: DEFTONES-Around the Fur (1997).

furOn this album, the band sounds older than they did on Adrenaline.  And they are, obviously, but it sounds like they grew up a bit–maybe that’s Chino Moreno’s voice.  I kind of thought that I loved this album.  Turns out I like it a lot, but that I love their next album more.  This album is a marked improvement over the first one, but doesn’t quite get to the experimental nature of their later music.

Having said that, “My Own Summer (Shove It)” is the quintessential early Deftones song.  The verses are creepy whispered (nobody whispers like Chino) with a really neat and unexpected slinky bass.  And then the chorus is huge–big loud guitars  screams and shouts of Shove It.  The post-chorus keeps that whispery style of vocal but with the heavy guitars.  It’s dramatic and really unsubtle and nobody does it like they do.  It’s hard to follow that song but “Lhabia” does an admirable job.  “Lhabia” also features Chino’s quite singing.  I love that he stretches out his words over fast chugging guitar, seemingly contradicting their sound.  “Mascara” slows things down, making for a very creepy song.  There’s no real bridge or even chorus but when the song slows down and he quietly sings “it’s too bad.  it’s too bad.  you’re married.  to me.”  It’s packs a punch.  “Around the Fur” brings in some real heaviness including some rage-filled screams at the end.

“Rickets” has some of that oddball guitar signature that bands like Korn would also play (Korn and Deftones are sort of the founding fathers of this genre of metal so they are allowed some similarities.  “Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away) is the most melodic thing the band has done yet.  Big full guitars and an upbeat bridge–it introduces some alt rock elements and a hint of shoegazer guitar.  It’s followed by loud guitars and real guttural screams.  I really like the ope tuning of the guitars that sound almost metallic   “Dai the Flu” opens with a great full bass sound.  “Headup” features a duet with Max Calavera of Sepultura.  The song has Calavera singing the word “Soulfly” which is the name of the band that he formed around the same time.  I wonder which came first.  The final song “MX” features a female voice questioning Chino during the chorus (and some really crazy sounds).  There’s something strangely sexy about the whole song even if the crazy sounds have it veer towards the creepy.  “MX” is listed as 35 or so minutes but it’s really only 4 minutes.  There’s two bonus things stuck in the dead air space.  A goofy thing called “bong hit” at around 19 minutes (which is indeed, a bong hit) and a hidden track at 32 minutes called “Damone.”  “Damone” is a fast song that never really lets up.

In hindsight it’s easy to see that the band were heading towards something amazing but hadn’t gotten there yet.  But at the time, this was pretty revolutionary on its own.

[READ: February 25, 2013] “#37 Guy Bleeding All Over Skype”

According to Harper’s this is an excerpt from “More Little Tales of the Internet” that was published in Conjunctions.  I’m curious to know more about the whole thing, but figured I’d write this before investigating further.  So, are there #37 of these little snippets?  Are there lots more?  Are there just a few random numbers?  I wonder.

This story is told from the point of view of a man at a business meeting.  The “guy” of the title is a big man, calling into the business meeting via Skype.  He seems to be big in terms of the company, but he also big in that he has positioned his head to be very large (mostly forehead and crown) on the screen.  The guy seems oblivious to this as he talks about the important stuff he needs to discuss (of which we learn nothing).

The narrator muses that he assumes everyone noticed things exactly when he did but nobody compared notes or anything.  Unless, he says, you thought it was some kind of technological glitch on screen, then you had to notice what happened. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Robin Sloan–Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore (2012)

Posted in Books about writers, Daredevils, Dungeons & Dragons, Fiona Apple, Fonts, Mystery, Research, Robin Sloan, Scholarship, Technology on January 22, 2013| 1 Comment »

penumbraSOUNDTRACK: FIONA APPLE-The Idler Wheel is Wiser than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords will Serve You More than Ropes Will Ever Do (2012).

fionaFiona Apple released the album with the longest title a few years ago.  The title of this new album (also taken from a verse of Apple’s) doesn’t quite match in terms of length, but the music absolutely delivers in terms of quality.

When the Pawn… was full of big numbers–it was loud and brash and gorgeous.  The Idler Wheel is much more subdued and initially I didn’t think it was as exciting.  But this subdued music draws you in and gets you to really absorb everything that’s going on.  Musically, this album takes notes on the orchestration from her previous album Extraordinary Machine, but it scales  everything back  to what amounts to just Fiona’s voice (often multitracked) and minimal instrumentation.

Like “Every Single Night” which opens with beautiful bells/glockenspiel as Fiona sings.  “Daredevil” is almost all percussion and loud piano.  Indeed, the main sounds of the song is a quick shuffling followed by short piano chords.  It is so stark but her voice just sails through the open space beautifully.

The meandering piano of “Jonathan” is great–at turns minor and sad but then come chords and beauty.  More drums fill “Left Alone” as the opening twenty or so seconds are all drums followed by a menacing piano riff and the amusing lyric, “How can I ask anyone to love me when all I do is beg to be left alone” (and with each subsequent repeating of this chorus she sounds more and more exasperated).

“Periphery” is also mainly percussion.  But in this case, the percussion sounds like feet scraping on gravel–rhythmically of course.  This leads to a great vocal turn by Fiona, one that climaxes in a big roaring almost shouting section.  Speaking of roaring, just listen to the rawness that Fiona reaches on “Regret.”  It is spine tingling.

“Anything We Want” opens with more odd percussion, which I’m led to believe came from Fiona tapping on things on her desk–and it sounds like it–not instruments, but found objects.  Indeed, read the list of instruments that she and her compatriot used on the album: For “Feedy”: Artwork, Celeste, Composer, Dancer, Field Recording, Keyboard Bass, Loops, Percussion, Piano, Primary Artist, Producer, Stomping, Timpani, Vocals and for “Seedy”: Autoharp, Baritone, Bouzouki, Cora, Dancer, Drums, Field Recording, Guitar, Marimba, Percussion, Producer, Stomping.

The final song is just Fiona and tympani as she sings a line about hot knives and melting butter.  Then the piano and second voice (her sister) sings a fugue as the lines repeat over each other.  It’s a crazy, daring song to end an album with and it sounds like nothing else on the radio today.

I have never been disappointed by an album from Fiona.  Each album is different, taking new chances having wilder experimentation   And this one is up there with the best.  It’s easily one of the best records of 2012.

[READ: January 16, 2012] Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

I saw an ad for this book in The Believer (I believe) and I thought it looked great.  Sarah said she had already put it on hold.  And when it came in from the library, I grabbed it first.

This book is really great.  It’s a story full of intrigue and secret societies  it embraces old books and modern technology; it’s a romance and a puzzle.  And it’s all done in a very comic style.

What is surprising is how different the book is from what I initially expected.  True, I didn’t know anything really about the book before reading it, but the book opens with an overeducated and underemployed guy, Clay, getting a job in the titular bookstore.  But it’s no normal bookstore.  First, it’s open 24 hours a day (that’s 8 hour shifts for three clerks because they really don’t have many customers).  Second, it’s very narrow and very tall–Penumbra has a massive ladder that rolls along all of the shelves and there’s a chapter dedicated to using it properly.  Third, although there are books for sale in the front (an esoteric lot based mostly on Penumbra’s whims), the back section of books (the tall shelves called the Waybacklist) are not for sale–indeed, they are not even real books per se.

There is a small group of local readers (called the Unbroken Spine) who come to the store, give Clay a code, return a book and check out a new one.  Part of Clay’s job is to write down every detail he can about them each time they come in.  But he is not supposed to open any of these wayback books.  Those are really the only rules of the store.

Clay has two roommates, one of whom is Mat, a guy who works for Industrial Light and Magic as a miniaturist (he is building a miniature city in their living room called Matropolis).  He also has an old friend, Neel, with whom he played a Dungeons and Dragons like game called Robots and Warlocks.  Neel has since become a very wealthy programmer (his job is very funny).  Clay and Neel both loved the The Dragon-Song Chronicles, a trilogy of nerdiness by the author Clark Moffat (incidentally, later in the book a character is named Tabitha–this is now the SECOND book in which both of my children’s names are included and both of them are good guys.  Hooray!  So obviously I loved this book).  I love that later in the book, Clay is making an mp3 version of the books because they were only available on cassette!  (I was equally outraged with him).

When Clay’s friends visit the store, they are enchanted by it and can’t believe that he hasn’t looked at any of the books.  So, he does.  He breaks the rule and flips through a book.  But he can’t make much out of it as it has been encoded.

Soon after, a pretty young girl named Kat Potente enters the store (because of a Google ad that he placed trying to get people into the store–she fit every quirky demographic he could dream up).  Kat works for Google, recognizes that Clay is a kindred soul and, in the whirlwind way of people who know what they want, she sets up a date with him.  They hit it off immediately, especially when she sees that he’s working on a program to graph the checkouts of the books that the Unbroken Spine take out.  (Yup, there’s programming in the book–in Ruby).  The graph suddenly starts taking shape and Clay believes that a pattern is slowly emerging.  And when it does, it is like no pattern you have ever seen! (more…)

Read Full Post »

Tony Abbott–Time Surfers series (1996-1997)

Posted in Adventure, Boredom, C., Children's Books, End of the World, Fantasy, History, Mad Scientists, NASA, Phineas and Ferb, Technology, Tony Abbott, Waffles on December 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHINEAS AND FERB-The Twelve Days of Christmas (2009).

12daysTo get you in the mood for the holidays, I present The Phineas and Ferb Twelve Days of Christmas.  Each character gets a wish, even Perry.  And of course, Ferb’s wish on the 12th day is great.

Obviously, Doofenschmirtz is the comic relief of the song (although most of the wishes are funny in themselves).  Doofenshmirtz hilariously wishes for the entire tri-state area and then slowly backs down to one state, admitting he was overreaching at the beginning.

I can’t find a video from the show, but there are plenty cobbled together on YouTube.  Like this one.  Enjoy!

 

[READ: July 2012] Time Surfers series

We’re still working through all of the different Tony Abbott series.  And this series, Time Surfers, is another early collection of eight books about young kids going on adventures.  This series was also difficult to find (although it has recently come back into print (with much better illustrations).  The think I have yet been able to figure out about Abbott’s earlier series–they seem like he planned to do more.  Or more specifically, they seem unfinished.  I wonder if he gave up or if the publishers gave up on him.

So this series seems to have a few arcs in it.  New villains emerge, which is interesting, although as C. pointed out, what happened to Vorg from the first four books, he just seemed to go away.

Book #1, Space Bingo starts the series in an interesting way (Tony Abbott’s exposition is always interesting–indeed all of th ebooks open up with a scene the seems to be one thing but is revealed to be something else).  Ned Banks has moved to a new city far away from his home and his best friend.  He has to start a new school and he’s not too happy about it.  His sister has been calling him Nerd instead of Ned and the nickname is starting to spread, especially since such bad luck things are happening to him in school.  So he does what any clever kid would do–he creates a communicator (and tells his best friend Ernie how to make one) so that they can talk to each other whenever they want (and not have phone charges!).  When Ned turns the communicator on, however, it opens a time portal in his closet and two kids from the year 2099 come flying out. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Terry Moore–Echo #27-30 [end] (2011)

Posted in Adventure, Death, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Mad Scientists, Military, Smarty Pants, Strangers in Paradise, Supernatural, Technology, Terry Moore, The English Beat, Threats, Violence on November 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE ENGLISH BEAT-Live at Bumbershoot, September 6, 2010 (2010).

I’ve always loved ska.  So to see that the (English) Beat were playing shows and playing them for download on KEXP was  a pretty grand thing.

I’m still trying to figure out if these short sets from Bumbershoot were KEXP-only shows (in which the band plays a brief set and then they play the actual show later), but I believe so. Anyhow, the band sounds great, singer Dave Wakeling is a great frontman, telling amusing stories about the songs and generally charming everyone (his singing voice still sounds great, too).

Wakeling has a nice little diatribe about Target.  It begins with him saying how he never was asked to be in a commercial before Target asked him for “Tenderness.”  And now it’s everywhere.  But he’s upset that Target supported the  anti-gay candidate in Minnesota.  He promises that if he ever gets the money from the ads, it will go to support the candidate’s opponent.  He also says that “Mirror in the Bathroom” was not about cocaine–they couldn’t afford it bcak then.

I’m not really sure who is in the band on this tour.  Ranking Roger is apparently running another English Beat band in the U.K.  Sigh.  But regardless, this was like a wonderful flashback to the long lost art of ska.  The set is a collection of highlights from their 80s career.  I mean look at all the great songs they wrote: “I’ll Take You There,” “I Confess,” “Save It for Later,” “Never You  Done That,” “Tenderness,” and “Mirror in the Bathroom.”

Listen for yourself here.

[READ: November 27, 2012] Echo #27-30

The problem with a comic book that comes out every six weeks (especially if you stopped going to the comic books store) is that it’s easily forgotten, no matter how much you like it (my rave of issues 25 and 26 leave me stunned that it has been almost two years since I last read the story).  But I recently went to my local shoppe and scored these last few issues (#30 even signed by Terry himself).  And I immediately got back into the story.

So as #27 picks up, we see that the climax is almost at hand.  Ivy, the hardened agent is growing younger and younger and is forgetting more.  Meanwhile, Julie is almost completely covered by the alloy and is now a giant.  And Annie is surfacing more and more in Julie (Annie is in the alloy’s DNA) which means Dillon is allowed a degree of closeness and closure.

#28 was awesome because it tied this universe back to the Strangers in Paradise world even more.  They are still using Tambi, the bodyguard, (from SiP) who worked for Darcy.  In this issue she interrogates another member of Darcy’s team (with the telltale tattoo).  By the end of the book Ivy is a mere child (the fact that Moore can draw this–keeping her Ivy and yet now looking like a little kid with such few lines is amazing). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Phineas and Ferb: The Best Live Tour Ever (State Theatre, New Brunswick, NJ, November 2, 2012)

Posted in Funny (ha ha), New Brunswick, NJ, Phineas and Ferb, Phineas and Ferb: The Best Live Tour Ever, State Theatre, Technology on November 23, 2012| 1 Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 23, 2012] Phineas and Ferb

Phineas and Ferb is one of the smartest, funniest kids shows around.  It’s a show that I would watch by myself if I didn’t have a queue of things that I can’t watch with my kids as well.  This live show has been bouncing around the area for months.  It has played at least four locations in NY and NJ that I thought about going to, but I wasn’t really sure if it was worth the expense and effort.  Then, it finally came to the State Theatre, with a mail flier that saved us 20%.  Hard to say no.

So this is a Disney production.  This means, among other things, that they take care of you while you wait for the show to start–they had a dancer ask questions and warm us all up.  It was fun.  They also had good production numbers and a very talented, anonymous cast.

Okay so the TV show is about two boys (with crazy heads) who are on summer vacation.  They are looking for something awesome to do on this particular day and they wind up getting involved in some preposterously over the top plan (building a rollercoaster in their yard, creating a time machine, etc).  It’s not like the show explains anything technical about how they do it–it’s not that kind of smart–but it really encourages creativity.  Their older sister Candace is always trying to get them in trouble for their schemes, but she always fails (but they’re never really mean to her back, which I like).

The other aspect of the show is Perry the Platypus.  Perry is their pet.  But, unbeknownst to the boys, he is also a secret agent who is bent on stopping the evil Dr Doofenschmirtz, the evil doctor who creates some kind of “-inator” machine every episode which is designed to cause some kind of destruction in the tri-state area.

So how can this over the top cartoon translate to the stage? (more…)

Read Full Post »

Jonathan Franzen–How to Be Alone (2002)

Posted in Book Reviews, Books about writers, Culture Shock, Death, Essays, Harper's, Jonathan Franzen, Lou Reed, Marriage Trouble, Merzbow, Metallica, New Yorker, Nicholas Negroponte, Paula Fox, Prison, Psychiatry, Research, Scholarship, Sex, Smarty Pants, Sunn O))), Technology, Unlikable main character, War, William Gaddis, Word usage on November 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SUNN O)))-Flight of the Behemoth (2002).

I hadn’t really heard Sunn O))) until this record (which may not be typical as they collaborated with Merzbow on this one).  I knew that Sunn O))) played loud droney “music.”  And so it is here.  On “Mocking Solemnity” (9 minutes) and “Death Becomes You” (13 minutes) (which meld into each other seamlessly), the songs are mostly slow drones on electric guitar.  The chords are heavy and heavily distorted and they ring out for a few bars–not until the chords die naturally, there is a kind of pacing involved, but for a few bars until the chords are played again (often the same chord).  This is for those who thought Metal Machine Music was too complicated.

On paper this sounds unimpressive (or downright awful, depending) but in reality it is a very physical experience (if played loud enough).

The staticy noise of “Death” melds into track 3 “O))) Bow 1” which adds what sounds like radically modified piano playing a kind of melody.  It’s about 6 minutes and it really changes the tone of the record to suddenly add an atonal racket to the almost calming drone of the bass.  But by the middle of the song, the piano becomes what sounds like a chainsaw.  Merzbow mixed that track and  “O))) Bow 2” which is 13 minutes of the same slow pulsating noise.  It’s not exactly soothing.

The final track is “F.W.T.B.T.” a “remake” of “Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”  I can’t hear a thing that sounds like the original, but that’s what makes a cover interesting.  Although admittedly around the four and a half minute mark there’s some faster chords (for this band anyhow) that could be Metallica-like.  There are also drums (and vocals, although I have no idea what they are saying) on this ten-minute workout.

Not for the faint of heart (or fans of melody).

[READ: November 17, 2012] How to Be Alone

I read most of the articles in this book already.  But I read them over two years ago, so I thought it would be safe to wade into the world of Franzen again.  What I find most interesting about the title of this book is just how many of these articles are about being alone, wanting to be alone or feeling like you are alone.  Obviously that is by design but it seems surprising just how apt the title proved to be, especially given the variety of subjects  his father’s brain, being a novelist, the US Postal Service, New York City.

I’m not going to go into major detail about each article this time, although I am providing a link to the earlier review–my feelings didn’t really change about the pieces (except that from time to time I got a bit exhausted at his…whininess?  No, not that exactly…maybe his persecution complex.  But I will give a line summary about each one just to keep everyone up to speed.  The four pieces that I hadn’t read before I will give a few more words about.

One overall feeling is that when Franzen isn’t writing about the state of the novel (which he is very passionate about) his articles are well researched well documented which is kind of surprising given the state of panic he seems to be in the novel articles.  It’s also kind of funny how out of touch these articles seem (some are almost 20 years old and are kind of laughably outdated), but it’s also funny to see how poorly his predictions panned out.  The death of the novel is rather overrated (just see the success of his own Freedom.

So the book contains: (more…)

Read Full Post »

Ian Frazier–“A Farewell to Yarns” (Outside, November 2012)

Posted in Adventure, All Songs Considered, Birds, Black Sabbath, Earth, Essays, Fishing, H.P. Lovecraft, Ian Frazier, Judas Priest, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Outside, Technology, Unreliable narrator on October 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: EARTH-All Tomorrows Parties, October 5, 2011 (2011).

Anyone who likes Black Sabbath a lot knows that they were originally called Earth.  About mid way through this concert, the lead singer/guitarist of Earth says that he grew up listening to Black Sabbath and reading HP Lovecraft, so Earth is clearly something of a tribute.   Incidentally, he grew up in Manalapan, NJ which is just down the road from us.

All of these bona fides means that I should love Earth.  But I have to say that although I didn’t dislike this show at all, it’s really not my thing.  Earth creates long droney songs.  I tried to measure a couple of BPM of songs and came out with 60 for one song and 42 for another (by contrast Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law” is 180 BPM).

The songs are all instrumental and range from 8 to 12 minutes.  Again, nothing objectionable about that.  Indeed most of the songs are cinematic and cool sounding.  My problem with them is that there wasn’t a lot of dynamism in the songs.  The bass wasn’t crazy heavy or loud or chest rattling (as I had been led to believe Earth’s bass was).  The melodies were pretty, but it came across as soundtrack music–for a very very slow zombie chase, perhaps.

According to some basic history, Earth used to be a heavier, noisier band, but have morphed away from that, and I suspect I would have liked their earlier stuff a bit more (although the one older that they played, “Ouroboros is Broken” wasn’t that much different from the rest.

NPR broadcast most of the All Tomorrow’s Parties concerts, and I enjoyed listening to them all.  But Earth is just not my thing.  You can check it out here.

[READ: October 20, 2012] “A Farewell to Yarns”

I mentioned the other day that I read one complete piece in the three Outside magazines since I subscribed.  It was this one.  The thing that I have enjoyed about the Outside articles that I have cherry picked is that unexpected writers pop up to write an essay.  So here’s Ian Frazier, comedian and essayist, writing for Outside.  Weird.  (Or maybe not so weird, he’s an Editor).

And, unlike many of the other things I’ve read in Outside, Frazier is not, repeat not going to do anything brave or daring or stupid, he’s just going to muse about a topic.  I like it.

Basically, this whole piece is a compliant about how with everything documented and digitalized it’s impossible to tell fibs about the one that got away or as he calls it, “an outdoorsman’s sacred right to exaggerate.”  What I like is that he takes us all the way back to ye olde mapmakers who wrote Here be Monsters which leads to this wonderful idea that I have never considered “the pictures of the monsters must have been accurate; how would the mapmakers have known what to draw unless eyewitnesses had told them?”

And he moves on through those who spied the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.  He even talks about one I had ever heard of, a hidden city in Siberia called Gorod Koka-Kola, built during the cold war as a reproduction of an American city, they speak English and live and behave like Americans–perfect for spymasters to practice   Genius–and how would anyone ever know if it existed in remotest Siberia?

But Fraizer’s greater point is that “Lies make the wild scary and alluring.”  He grew up in Rural Illinois afraid of the Argyle Monster who haunted Argyle State Park–and, boy, how many adventures he had or dreamed of having back then. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Douglas Coupland–Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work! (2010)

Posted in Annie Hall, Biography, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, CBC Radio 3, Consumerism, Death, Depression, Douglas Coupland, Extraordinary Canadians, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Marshall McLuhan, Short Books, Silversun Pickups, Smashing Pumpkins, Technology, The Future on October 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SILVERSUN PICKUPS-Live on KEXP, May 11, 2012 (2012).

Following the other day’s review of Silversun Pickups, I have this more recent show.  In this one, only two members of the band are here–singer/guitarist Brian Aubert and bassist Nikki Monninger for a stripped down acoustic show.

This set is much more enjoyable than the older set.  The songs are certainly stronger, especially “Bloody Mary” and “The Pit.”  But there’s also something refreshing about hearing this band who is usually so fuzzed out sounding clean and simple.  I wouldn’t want an entire acoustic album from these guys, but it’s so dynamic in this version.  You can really hear the construction of the songs in this simple setting.

And the rapport between Brian and DJ Cheryl Waters is relaxed (they are very funny) and engaging–I really want to like these guys.

It’s interesting that in the five years from the previous set the Billy Corganisms have not gone away at all, but I guess one can’t help what one’s voice sounds like.  It’s kind of hard to get past that, but it’s not impossible, and the songs are so good, you can overlook it.  This makes me want to check out their latest album.  You can hear it here.

And for  those who watch TV, Silversun Pickups were on Up All Night this week (in a very weird mash up of pop culture).  Is that how lesser known bands get publicity, or was that meant to be a draw for the show (I don’t know how popular they are–Sarah had never heard of them).

[READ: October 18, 2012] Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work!

I had not heard of this book until I saw it in my local library.  I wasn’t prepared to read another biography of Marshall McLuhan, and indeed, this isn’t one.  This is the American edition of Extraordinary Canadians: Marshall McLuhan with a spiffy new title.  And it is virtually identical.

There are several things that were in the Canadian edition that were left out of the American edition (although they did leave in all of the “u”s in words like “colour”).

The things that were left out are: (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »