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Archive for the ‘Anna Summers’ Category

Ludmilla Petrushevskaya–“The Story of a Painter” (New Yorker, January 18, 2016)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Anna Summers, Art, Books about writers, Damien Jurado, Greed, Humiliation, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, New Yorker, Russia, Short Story, Surreal, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation on January 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

1182016SOUNDTRACK: DAMIEN JURADO–Tiny Desk Concert #114 (February 28, 2011).

damienI had always assumed that Damien Jurado was someone else entirely.  I had no idea that he was (as the blurb describes him) “a big dude playing sad songs.”

And he is.

For this Tiny Desk it’s just him and his guitar.  He keeps his eyes closed tightly as he sings these sad songs.  His guitar playing is simple–just strummed chords and his voice is simple as well–there’s no tricks.  It’s all about his songwriting.

I liked all four of these songs: “Cloudy Shoes,” “Newspaper Gown” (that was my favorite), “Arkansas,” and “Beacon Hill.”

The strangest thing about him was how uncommunicative he seemed to be–almost nervous.  He barely spoke and when he did it was hard to hear.  And as soon as the set was done he immediately stood up to leave.

Although he does say it’s “nice.”

His songs were lovely although I don’t think I’ll be seeking him out anytime soon.

[READ: January 12, 2016] “The Story of a A Painter”

This story was translated by Anna Summers and, as the title suggests, it is about a painter.

But this story delves into surreal territory pretty quickly.  It may even be a fairy tale as the opening line is “There once lived a painter….”

This painter has had some bad fortune as of late.  His landlord promised to get him a lot of money if he would sell his large apartment.  But the landlord sold the place and kept the money (a lawsuit is pending).  Then the landlord offered him a place under the stairs–no running water–which the painter accepted.  But he can’t pay the landlord, so the landlord gives him grief every day.

On another day a man asked if he would rent him his “apartment.”  The painter said yes for money up front.  The man gave him the money then moved his entire family into the tiny, below-the-stairs place and planned to never leave.  Now the painter was destitute and homeless. (more…)

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Nadezhda Teffi–“Family and Others” (Harper’s, April 2014)

Posted in Anna Summers, Beck, Bob Dylan, Harper's, Nadezhda Teffi, Record Club, Russia, Short Story, The Velvet Underground, Translation on March 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Harpers-1404-302x410SOUNDTRACK: BECK/RECORD CLUB-VELVET UNDERGROUND: Velvet Underground & Nico (2010).

velvetAccording to the Beck/Record Club website:

Record Club is an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day. The album chosen to be reinterpreted is used as a framework. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track is put up here once a week. As you will hear, some of the songs are rough renditions, often first takes that document what happened over the course of a day as opposed to a polished rendering. There is no intention to ‘add to’ the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens. And those who aren’t familiar with the albums in question will hopefully look for the songs in their definitive versions.

Introducing this first recording, Beck explains:

For this first edition, after lengthy deliberation and coming close to covering Digital Underground’s Sex Packets, all present voted in favor of the ‘other’ Underground’s The Velvet Underground & Nico. Participants included this time around are Nigel Godrich, Joey Waronker, Brian Lebarton, Bram Inscore, Yo, Giovanni Ribisi, Chris Holmes, and from Iceland, special guest Thorunn Magnusdottir, and myself. Thanks to everyone who helped put this together, and to all of you for indulging in this experiment. More soon.

That’s a lot of introduction for this record, which, as you have surmised is a full cover of the Velvet Underground’s debut album.  And, as the blurb promises, it is chaotic, but often charming.  I am not a huge Velvet Underground fan, although I have this and some of their other albums.  I appreciate them more for what they spawned than what they played.  But having said that I know this record pretty well.  I did make a point of not listening to the original before listening to this.

The track listing:

Sunday Morning (3:15).  This version is pretty faithful.  Beck sings and sounds a bit like Lou Reed.
I’m Waiting For The Man (4:04).  This song is very silly indeed–instruments detuned and loopy sounding.  It’s a little funny but a little annoying too.
Femme Fatale (2:42).  This is a straight version with Beck taking the Nico part and doing a nice job of it.
Venus In Furs (5:22).  This song is a little noisy & feedbacky but it’s a great version. Probably my favorite song of the bunch.
Run Run Run (4:25).  They’ve turned this into a little synth pop song.
All Tomorrow’s Parties (5:16).  This has vocals by Thorunn Magnusdottir.  She doesn’t quite have whatever Nico had and consequently although the songs tarts out pretty, the length and tempo turns it a little dull by the end.
Heroin (6:40).  This version is insane, with Brian Lebarton getting more and more frantic.  If the instruments didn’t sounds so cheap, the intensity would be pretty awesome.  But it’s a little wonky sounding (and a too long).
There She Goes Again (3:02).  This song is like “Waiting for the Man” detuned and silly.
I’ll Be Your Mirror (2:33).  This is a pretty version which would, once again sound a little better if the instruments didn’t sound cheap.
Black Angel’s Death Song (3:43). Beck sounds more like Dylan on this song, which i don’t know that well at all.
European Son (3:26).  This song is a little dull, I don’t recognize it.
Heroin (Bonus Alternate Version) (5:05).  This version of Heroin is a bit more reasonable than the other version, although I wish it had a little of the first version’s chaos.  Maybe a meeting of the two would be ideal.

So this is a fun project where talented friends get to make some music together.  It gets an even higher “grade” overall because he’s not releasing it officially, not asking money for it.  Not every song is a winner, but those that win are quite good.

[READ: March 17, 2014] “Family and Others”

Nadezhda Teffi was alive from 1872-1952 and wrote this in 1912.  It was translated from the Russian by Anna Summers.

This is a very simple story that doesn’t feel like a story so much as a friendly lecture about family.  The story begins with the statement that we tend to divide people in to family and others.  Which is true.  he continues that Family knows everything about us while Others know very little about us.  Sometimes when people get closer, they move from other to family.  However, it is the family that tends to give us the most grief.

When you are sick, others send you flowers but family interrogate you about when you caught the cold and what you were doing when you got it.  They don’t try to make you feel better, they want to know more about the problem.  He offers several similar situations in which family is less than cuddly with us.

(more…)

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Ludmilla Petrushevskaya–”Medea” (Harper’s, June 2011)

Posted in Anna Summers, Death, Fables, Harper's, Keith Gessen, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Russia, Short Story, Violence, Weezer on June 24, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WEEZER-Death to False Metal (2010).

This is a fascinating release.  I assumed it was a quick cash in of unreleased tracks.  And yet it doesn’t sound like a bunch of tracks from different eras thrown together.  A little digging reveals that it is sort of a collection of unreleased tracks.  The ten songs here were written over the band’s career but were either never finished or were finished but never released.  According to various places online, Rivers edited and manipulated the songs (and maybe re-recorded some?) to make them all sound current (and like they’re from the same time).  Thus he considers this to be the follow-up to Hurley.

The album is full of poppy songs (“Turning Up the Radio” has FIFTEEN people listed as composer on Allmusic–the true sign of a pop juggernaut).  There’s a couple of slightly heavier songs, “Blowin My Stack” has a big shouty chorus and “Autopilot” has a very electronic kind of sound.  But perhaps the most notable track is the cover of “Unbreak My Heart.”  That song came out in 1996, so one assumes that this version must be at least ten years old, because why would someone make a cover of an old pop hit from fourteen years ago?  It’s quite good, though, as Weezer covers tend to be.

If you like Weezer, this isn’t a throw away.  The songs are just as good as their other recent records (which means they’re not as good as their early ones, but are still poppy).  If you don’t like Weezer this will do nothing to change your mind.

Although I am amused by the album cover design that they chose for this title (which is a tribute to the band Manowar, obviously), I think a better cover would have been Weezer in loincloths.  Can you imagine Rivers Cuomo brandishing a giant sword?

[READ: May 21, 2011] “Medea”

Ludmilla Petrushevskaya had a story in The New Yorker recently.  The fact that she has one here as well can only mean she has a book coming out (although a quick look at Amazon does not indicate that she does).

The opening line says, “This is an awful story…”  And it’s true (not in the sense of being bad, but in the badness that it contains).  Petrushevskaya tends to write very dark stories (dark fairy tales is how they’re mostly categorized), and while this is not a fairy tale, it is certainly dark (and as with most of her stories, it’s quite short).

It’s a fairly simple story: the narrator hops in a cab and complains about how her seventy-three year old grandmother called for a cab to pick her up at a certain time but it never came–and never even called to say it wasn’t coming.  This meant she missed her plane, and the people waiting for her missed her and basically the whole day (and a lot of money) was lost because of a cab.

The cabbie didn’t have anything to do with that, but he tells her that it could be worse, and proceeds to launch into a story trying to outdo her story.  They jockey for position in terms of terrible stories (a woman whose baby dies on vacation–and that’s only the beginning of her problems) until finally he talks about himself. (more…)

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Ludmilla Petrushevskaya–“A Withered Branch” (The New Yorker, April 18, 2011)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Anna Summers, Books about writers, Culture Shock, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, New Yorker, Short Story, The Head and the Heart, Translation, Travel on May 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE HEAD AND THE HEART-KEXP in Studio, September 14, 2010 (2010).

My saga of The Head and the Heart continues.  Sarah had ordered me the disc for Christmas, but the self-released CD had gone out of print.  This is because Sub Pop was going to re-release the record sometime in the new year.

Well, NPR loved the album, so why wouldn’t they have more recordings by them?  (This is one of the great things about enjoying new bands…they are far less likely to restrict listening and downloading abilities online).  So, this session (September) was recorded shortly after they released their album (July).  I have still yet to hear the actual album, but I have fallen in love with these songs.

This set (which has some very brief interview portions) is five songs. The band sounds great, with wonderful harmonies.  The first two songs “Cats and Dogs” and “Coeur d’Alene” meld together seamlessly, and it works wonders.  “Lost in My Mind” is an amazingly catchy single: the “whoo whoos” (which sound not unlike a train) are wonderfully catchy (in a Mumford and Sons kind of way).

They also play “Ghosts” (another catchy catchy song) and the non-LP song “Down in the Valley” (which has the slightly uncomfortable opening lyrics: “I wish I was a slave to an age-old trade”).

This neo-folkie revival has generated some great bands, and The Head and the Heart are yet another one.

[READ: April 14, 2011] “A Withered Branch”

This is a very brief short story (a page and a half) translated by Anna Summers.

A young woman hitchhikes into Vilinus.  She is picked up by a trucker and is unbothered until they get to a rest stop.  While they are having dinner, one of the drivers wonders who she will sleep with that night.

But that is the prelude to the story.  When she arrives in the city, she meets a woman of about fifty who, when the narrator asks if there is any place to stay, offers her own house to the (dirty and sweaty) stranger/narrator. (more…)

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