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Archive for the ‘Violence’ Category

Tony Cliff–Delilah Dirk and the King’s Shilling (2016)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Adventure, Culture Shock, Fantasy, First Second :01, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Revenge, Sexism, Supernatural, Tea, Tiny Desk Concert, Tony Cliff, Violence on August 28, 2016| Leave a Comment »

dirkSOUNDTRACK: ANTHONY D’AMATO-Tiny Desk Concert #398 (October 20, 2014).

damatoI’d never heard of Anthony D’Amato before this Tiny Desk Concert, and yet his music sounds vaguely familiar.  D’Amato sings fast, upbeat acoustic folk rock with a full band behind him.

“Was a Time” starts out with just him and his guitar.  But after the first verse the whole band kicks in and the song really takes off.  There’s some harmonica between verses and a big Whoo! before the end of the song.  The song is a fun romp, fun to sing along to until you realize the chorus: “there was a time that I loved you / I don’t love you any more.”

He introduces the second song “Good and Ready” and says “we’ll start whenever Derek is… good and ready.”  This song sounds very different as it opens with a cool soulful bassline.   After that opening the song proper begins with Amato’s acoustic guitar and the electric guitar playing a loud slide guitar riff.  This song is a bit more positive, despite the repeated line of I don’t wanna wake up,” the chorus is “I don’t wanna wake up if it ain’t next to you.”

All three of these songs use the same verse style with the first words of every line being repeated over and over.  In the first song, every libe starts, “There was a time….” In the second, each line begins “I don’t wanna wake up….”  The final song, “Ludlow,” changes things a little bit although each verse stats with the opening “First the…  then the….”

I felt a little  for his backing vocalist Katy Pinke, because while everyone else is doing things, she’s just standing there occasionally sinking a word or two.  Although for “Ludlow” he and Katy sing a quiet duet.

D’Amato writes catchy, rather pleasing songs.  I wonder why I haven’t heard of him before.

[READ: July 2, 2016] Delilah Dirk and the King’s Shilling

Much like I wrote about the first book: I enjoyed this story quite a lot.  Cliff’s drawing style which was peculiar but ultimately very satisfying.  And more importantly, he tells a great story.

But this book was even more satisfying than the first.  I have also changed my opinion of Cliff’s artistic style somewhat in that I think it is really fantastic.  It is definitely unusual–realistic but not exactly–and he has such amazing control of expressions.  Even moreso in this book in which Delilah goes into polite society and so much must be conveyed through expression.

Plus there’s a lot of action, too. (more…)

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Jordan Mechner, LeUyen Pham & Alex Puvilland–Solomon’s Thieves (2010)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Alex Puvilland, Death, Drinking, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Jordan Mechner, LeUyen Pham, Religion, Romance, Ryan Keberle & Catharsis, Sufjan Stevens, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Trombone Shorty, Violence, Yuck! on August 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »

solomonSOUNDTRACK: RYAN KEBERLE & CATHARSIS-Tiny Desk Concert #393 (October 4, 2014).

keberleWhen Trombone Shorty played the Tiny Desk I said that I was surprised to see that the leader of the band was a trombone player.  Well, perhaps it’s not that unusual as Ryan Keberle is a trombonist as well.  But unlike many recent jazz performers, Keberle & Catharsis aren’t showing off. As the blurb puts it, “he’s not after any high-concept framing. He’s just targeting the sweet spot where a nifty arrangement meets a solid groove.”

This band plays pretty traditional jazz (complete with upright bass solos and everything). Although, interestingly, their first song is a cover of  Sufjan Stevens song (turns out that Keberle toured with Stevens).  “Sister” is my favorite of their three songs.  I really enjoyed when the full band kicked in after the intro riff from Keberle.  The band has a vocalist, Camila Meza, who mainly does wordless vocal sounds.  As the song nears its end she does sing lead vocals, and it’s quite pleasant.

Her vocals work pretty well for this song, but I didn’t like it is much later.  That could be because “Sister” is a catchy pop song, where the other songs are jazzy.  And I find her singing style to be a little lite-Fm for my tastes.

“Gallop” is a bit faster than the first song.  It moves along at a nice clip and then stops for a bass and drum solo–very very jazzy.  There’s a trumpet solo in the middle of song too (no trombone solos which is interesting, I guess).  The other guys in the band are Michael Rodriguez on trumpet, Jorge Roeder on bass and Eric Doob on drums.

“Zone” opens with two contradicting three note riffs on both trombone and trumpet which is pretty cool.  Then the song settles down to just bass drums and voice and Keberle playing the melodica (beloved instrument of Tiny Desk Concerts) which works but sounds odd in the mix.  It seems like the song is going to end as the music fades to just bass, but it soon picks up again with anew trumpet solo.

I don’t love mellow jazz like this, but these players are excellent.

[READ: April 13, 2016] Solomon’s Thieves

I had this book on hold for quite some time.  When it finally came in, I thought, hey this art looks familiar.  And then hey, this book is about the Templar knights, what a strange thing that First Second would have two book about the Templar Knights.   And then as I flipped through it I realized the author and artists were the same.  And for a split second I though, they wrote two books about the Templar Knights?

And then it came to me that the first part of Templar was called “Solomon’s Thieves.”  And that this is indeed the First Part published long before Templar actually came out in full.

So even thought I had read the whole of Templar not too long ago, I decided to read this as well   As far as I can tell it is exactly the same as the first part of Templar.  Although it’s possible that there are some minor changes, I wasn’t sure if things that I didn’t remember were just because I can’t remember everything, you know?

Perhaps because I had read the full book not too long ago, I really enjoyed this run though again.  Since everything looked familiar, it was fun to pick up on things I missed the first time, and to see how things made a little more sense once I could tell who everyone was and what their roles were (there is something to be said for re-reading).

I’m including what I wrote about the first part of Templar here because it’s the same, but if you want more about the whole book or background about the Templar Knights check out the full post.

As the story opens we see Martin, a Knight, looking longingly at a woman, Isabelle.  We learn that he had been “dating” her (or whatever they called it back then) and then one day he found out that she left to be married to the brother of King Philip.  So he joined the Knights.  As they march through the city, we see that they are drunkards and carousers.  They get in all manner of trouble.  And one evening they were heading back to Paris when suddenly the above dictum was established–all Knights were to be arrested.  And Martin is one of them.

But through some excellent machinations (and good fighting) he escapes.  And he soon joins together with a very unlikely band of merry men, including Brother Dominic (a real priest with the tonsure and everything) and Brother Bernard, a loutish drunken man who is not above thieving from people.  Martin is offended at the thought of working with him, and they wind up at odds with each other from the start.  Before the end of the first book, we see that they have a letter revealing where all of the Templar gold and jewels are hidden.

There’s a great bit of accounting work done in which the bookkeeper shows on his ledger that rooms were empty when in fact it appears that the gold was taken out on hay carts.  The bookkeeper, even under torture, swears he knows nothing of the fortune’s whereabouts.

Mechner tells a really exciting story with humor and sadness.  The fact that it’s linked to history is just a bonus.  Another winner for First Second and their #1oyearsof01 anniversary.

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Grady Klein–The Lost Colony: Book No. 3 Last Rights (2008)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Drugs, First Second :01, Grady Klein, Graphic Novel, Huh?, Luluc, Nico, Racism, Religion, Slavery, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfinished series, Violence on August 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »

colony3SOUNDTRACK: LULUC-Tiny Desk Concert #390 (September 15, 2014).

luklucBob Boilen has loved Luluc for a while.  I never really appreciated them as much as I do on this Tiny Desk Concert.  The duo is from Australia (and now Brooklyn), and I’d always felt that their songs were nice but nothing special.  But you can really hear what’s going on in them.  Zoë Randell’s voice sounds like a revitalized Nico and Steve Hassett’s accompaniments are really interesting.

“Small Window” starts with Zoë strumming a small acoustic guitar and singing.  Steve accompanies on electric guitar.  It’s a pretty song with a nice melody. And his solos accentuate the song.  But when the song shifts gears to the “crystal waters” section and an unexpected chord change it becomes much more than a simple folk song.

For the second song “Without A Face,” Steve switches to bass.  When Zoë talks, her speaking voice is gentle and somewhat high-pitched so when she begins singing she sounds even more shockingly like Nico.  And the bass is wonderful on this song.  He throws in a lot of little fills that really add a lot to the verses.  And the “oh oh” section in the middle is wonderful with some great harmonies from each of them.

Zoë says they used to play with just two guitars and mics and they have added a lot more gear lately, but that they’ve they’ve stripped down for this show.  For “Reverie On Norfolk Street” he plays electric guitar (cooly vibrato’d) and his gentle backing vocals on this song are a nice almost bass addition to the song.  There’s even a guitar solo which after the song he says is “the quietest guitar solo in existence.”

Luluc really surprised me with this session and I may have to give their studio tracks another listen.

[READ: July 23, 2016] The Lost Colony 3

Book 3 ramps up the excitement quite a bit,  and also a had a lot of flashbacks that fill in some story lines.

Like the other two, it also begins with someone lost saying “Dear God where the %$!* am I?”  But this time he is a beautiful hunk of a man with gorgeous blond locks.  He is Buck Swagger and he is transported to the island on the ferry because of a letter from Olympia Snodgrass (the Mayor’s wife and Birdy’s mom).
(more…)

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Grady Klein–The Lost Colony: Book No. 2 The Red Menace (2007)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Drugs, First Second :01, Grady Klein, Graphic Novel, Huh?, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Justin Townes Earle, Racism, Religion, Slavery, Steve Earle, Tiny Desk Concert, Townes Van Zandt, Trampled By Turtles, Unfinished series, Violence on August 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »

colony2SOUNDTRACK: JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE-Tiny Desk Concert #389 (September 8, 2014).

 jteI had an idea that Justin Townes Earle was a country singer.  Although I’m sure I’m conflating him with Steve Earle (his father) and Townes Van Zant (whom he’s named after).  But I realized I’d never heard him.  He’s more of a folk singer and he’s very charming.  He implies that he flew from Nashville just to play the show (“a quick trip just for y’all”) which gets an awww from the crowd) and like Trampled by Turtles and Jessica Lea Mayfield, he’s heading back home right after he’s done.  He also had his guitar maker send his guitar to him in DC so he didn’t have to travel with it.

He has an interesting percussive strumming style (he doesn’t use a pick) and he sings about love and loss.  The first song, “Burning Pictures” has a great line about how he doubts you even remember your love’s name since it’s another girl in the picture frame.

“When The One You Love Loses Faith In You” is a bit more bluesy sounding.  He picks some melodic notes between full-fingered strums.

Amazingly, he seems like he might quit after just two songs.  Bob asks him to do one more–doesn’t have to be new–it can be one he loves.  His favorite so that he ever wrote was “White Gardenias” (for Billie Holiday).  He says it feels like he’s about to miss the beat as he’s starts singing–which scares the shit out of a rhythm section.

Before beginning, while tuning, he says he has to learn a lot of his old songs for the upcoming tour.  Bob asks if he listens to the records, and he laughs and says he Googles the songs, which is just so ridiculous.  Bob asks if he illegally downloads them but he says no he just streams them.

“White Gardenias” is a lovely song with beautiful lyrics although I don’t really get that Billie Holiday vibe from it.

[READ: July 22, 2016] The Lost Colony 2

The inside cover of book 2 gives a little summary of book 1 (which is helpful). It also give s little recap of all of the main characters (which all series should do, frankly).

I loved that book 2 also starts with someone asking “where the %#!* are we,” it’s a man and a very large woman.  They also convinced Fud’na (the screeching violin playing guardian of the ferry) to ferry them to the island.  The large woman reveals that she is wearing a  stars and stripes dress which is very tacky.  But more importantly, she is a singer herself (almost as bad as Fud’na perhaps).

As the bok opens, Louis the slave boy is being set upon by the rocks bugs (although we dont know why).  He is recused by Jo’Pa an Indian who lives on the island (it is rumored that he used to be a real savage Injun).  And there’s Birdy, she is dressed as Squinto, compete with feather and bow and arrow.

Then we meet the Snodgrass family and Birdy’s heretofore unmentioned Gramdy, a cantankerous old man (who is her mother’s father). Turns out that Grandy hates the Injuns and is very mad that Birdy is dressed like one. “We’re at war with the Indian, dont you know they’re evil.” (more…)

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Grady Klein–The Lost Colony: Book No. 1 The Snodgrass Conspiracy (2006)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Drugs, First Second :01, Grady Klein, Graphic Novel, Huh?, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Racism, Religion, Slavery, Tiny Desk Concert, Trampled By Turtles, Unfinished series, Violence on August 18, 2016| Leave a Comment »

colonySOUNDTRACK: JESSICA LEA MAYFIELD-Tiny Desk Concert #388 (September 6, 2014).

jlmI had an idea about who Jessica Lea Mayfield was.  I thought she was sort of a folkie/country singer who I had heard of but had no real exposure to.  So I was quite surprised to see this performer with pink hair, short shorts, no eyebrows and a ton of pink glitter under her eyes.

Turns out that her earlier records are kind of folkie but that for her 2014 album she was inspired by her grunge roots to make a noisy album.  This Tiny Desk concert has her playing three guitars–one for each song.  Each guitar is covered with glitter and one has stickers all over it.  For “Standing in the Dark” she plays her pink glitter 12 string guitar with lots of reverb.  It’s a fairly upbeat song.  The melody is simple and she sounds happy while singing it (this is notable).  The middle section has a solo which sounds really alien by itself (that 12 string with vibrato), but which works really well for the song.

She says she brought all of her guitars because she wanted to show them off.  Her speaking voice is cute and adorable.  And she seems almost childlike asking if “you have any cats” are you allowed to bring them to work.  Bob says that bands have brought their dogs and she says she wishes she’d brought hers.

“Party Drugs” is a slow song with more echo on the guitar.  It’s a slower , darker song “party drugs just make my head sing…  I won’t die in this hotel room, I’ll be here when you return.”  It ends with a dark chord and mildly distorted whammy bar and is rather creepy.

The final guitar is a hollow bodies white guitar.  The stickers on the knobs are ponies.  She says the direction of the ponies tells her how the knobs should go.  There’s a pony, an alien cat and a unicorn “system I got going on.”

“Seein* Starz” is slow chords (with more echo).  Her twangy accent peeks its way in a few times in this song.  I like the way the picking notes are vibrated enough to sound unpredictable.

There’s something really captivating and almost vulnerable (but not really) about her performance.   She says she could stay here and do this all day and show you how loud it usually is.   Bob mentions something about six hours implying that she traveled six hours just to play for them (like Trampled by Turtles did the previous show).

[READ: July 22, 2016] The Lost Colony 1

I read this book last year.  But since I wanted to  read the other two books in the series, I wanted to re-read this before moving on to Books 2 and 3.

My recollection is that I didn’t really like the first book all that much, so I wasn’t prepared to enjoy it this time around either.

But, as it turns out, I really did enjoy it (and I’m not reading wheat I wrote the first time, just to see how this reading compares).  I think perhaps I didn’t really know what I was getting into the first time.  And now with hindsight, and understanding how and when some of the things are supernatural, it made more sense. (more…)

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Jack Vance (adapted by Humayoun Ibrahim)–The Moon Moth (1961–adaptation 2012)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Carlo Rotella, Etiquette, First Second :01, Fraud, Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, Huh?, Humayoun Ibrahim, Jack Vance, Sci-fi, Surreal, Tiny Desk Concert, Trampled By Turtles, Violence on August 17, 2016| Leave a Comment »

moonmoth SOUNDTRACK: TRAMPLED BY TURTLES-Tiny Desk Concert #387 (September 3, 2014).

trampleI love the name Trampled by Turtles and it conjures up something very specific in my head.  And a bluegrass folk band is not it.

Although their first song on this set, the super fast “Come Back Home” does rather convey what their name does.  Bluegrass can be fast (often is, in fact) but, man, this song scorches and the violin solos that flow through the song are totally intense.

So I was a little bummed that the next two songs are really mellow ballads.  For “Winners” the band’s harmonies are spot on and I do like the sliding bass line.  In fact all of the instrumentation (mandolin, violin, guitars, bass) is really nice.  And I think if this didn’t follow that first song, I might like it more.  Perhaps they should have ended the set with “Come Back Home.”

Before beginning “Lucy,” they ask if they are doing one more.  Bob says yes unless they want to stay longer.  The singer asks if they’ve got beer and Bob says they can work something out.  The band is not ready to head back to New York yet–they came from New York just to play the Tiny Desk (which elicit’ awww’s from the audience).

“Lucy” opens with some cool staccato strumming.  It too is a pretty song that makes great use of all of their instruments9espeicoally the mandolin).

I have recently begun to enjoy bluegrass a lot more and I could see Trampled by Turtles being a gateway into more bluegrass.  But I need more fast songs like the first one.

[READ: May 10, 2016] The Moon Moth

This First Second graphic novel opens with a lengthy essay called “The Genre Artist” by Carlo Rotella.  In this essay Rotella sings the praises of unheralded genre master Jack Vance (whom I’ve never heard of–which is the point of the essay).  Rotella says that Vance has been described by his peers as “the greatest living writer of science fiction and fantasy.”  He has been writing for six decades and has won many awards.  But this success has mostly kept him in the genre ghetto.  Other writers have suggested that if he was born South of the border he’d be up for a Nobel prize [which is a strange thing to say, in my opinion].

The essay talks about how so many other writers love Vance (and the list of writers who contributed to a tribute volume is impressive). So after all of this hagiography, I expected to be blown away by this story.  And I wasn’t.  Although that might have been because of the illustrations.  The illustrations aren’t bad–they’re not my style, but they’re not bad.  However, the story is fairly complex, or shall I say it may not lend itself to visuals because so much of the beginning is about sound.

Although while I was confused by the beginning of the story (and maybe I’d have been confused if I read it too), by the end, Vance totally sold me on what was happening. (more…)

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Annie Proulx–-“Them Old Cowboy Songs” (New Yorker, May 5, 2008)

Posted in Annie Proulx, Babies, Death, Highasakite, New Yorker, Saintseneca, Sex, Short Story, The Decemberists, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Yuck! on August 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

may5SOUNDTRACK: SAINTSENECA-Tiny Desk Concert #377 (July 29, 2014).

saintsenecaLike Highasakite, Saintesenca is another band who plays instruments that are unusual (and whose Tiny Desk Concert is way too short).  But before the music started, I was fascinated by the hair of the band.  Zac Little’s head is partially shaved and his beard is unshaven, but he also has an incredible mustache.  It’s so thick I couldn’t see his mouth moving when he started singing!  There’s also the co-lead singer, Maryn Jones’ hair which is equally fascinating.

And there’s also their instruments.  On the album, they play: banjo, baglama, bulbul, balalaika, bowed banjo, baritone ukulele, bass and bouzouki as well as a stomp box.  For the first song, “Happy Alone,” In this set there is a baglamas (played by Jones), while Little plays a Paul McCartney style bass.  There’s also drums and electric and acoustic guitars.

And their music is fantastic “Happy Alone” has a kind of Decemberists vibe.  There’s a great chorus (and two acoustic guitars accompanying).  The melody is catchy but by the time it comes around a second or third time, it’s a total ear worm.

Between songs they talk about the stompbox.  It’s a roughly 2’x2′ plywood floorboard meant for pounding the beat. The blurb says that “at a show just before this Tiny Desk Concert… Little put his boot right through that floorboard.”  There’s a hole in the box which Jones seems concerned about falling through.  The box also explains why Jones and Little both seem so outrageously tall at this show.

On “Fed Up with Hunger” Little plays a four-stringed guitar (I wish they would say what all of these instrument are).  He plays some wonderfully elaborate chords on it.  Jones sings lead in a very high-pitched delicate voice.  There’s an electric guitar added for the chorus but for the most part this is a stripped down song with some lovely harmonies in the end section.

The final song “Blood Bath” has three distinct parts and it is awesome.  Jones plays bass, Little plays acoustic and the other acoustic guitarist  plays a tiny triangular instrument (a balalaika?).  Little sings in a kind of broken falsetto.  After the first slow verse the whole band kicks in and the song really takes off.  But soon after, the whole band seems to deconstruct the song, playing a few seconds of utter noise before coming back in and following it with a really fast rocking and equally catchy section.  It’s pretty awesome.

I’m going to have to look for more from them.

[READ: May 5, 2008] “Them Old Cowboy Songs”

I was looking through older stories and saw that I had not finished a story by Proulx which was written in a June issue of the New Yorker in this ame year.  How did she ever get two stories within a month of each other?  (And they’re both really really long, too).

This story is dark. Very dark and brutal.  It is set in 1885 and looks at a young couple trying to make it out in the wilderness

Archie is a sixteen year old who lies and says he is 21 to try to get better jobs.  He works a cowboy in Dakota Territory.  In addition to being a hard worker, he is a consummate singer with a golden voice.  He marries a young girl (14), named Rose whose parents don’t approve of him or of her getting married at 14, and they settle in.  The narrator notes: “There is no happiness like that of a young couple in a little house they have built themselves in a place of beauty and solitude.” (more…)

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Ha Jin–“The House Behind a Weeping Cherry” (New Yorker, April 7, 2008)

Posted in Ha Jin, Hank Williams III, Hank Williams Jr., Hank Williams Sr., Holly Williams, Jealousy, New Yorker, Prostitution, Sex, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Virginity (Loss of) on July 31, 2016| Leave a Comment »

2008_04_07-400SOUNDTRACK: HOLLY WILLIAMS-Tiny Desk Concert #373 (July 14, 2014).

holyHolly Williams is a country singer.  Her lineage is hard to deny: the daughter of Hank Williams Jr., half-sister of Hank Williams III, and the granddaughter of country legend, Hank Williams Sr. (she never met him, as he died long before she was born).

She sings three songs.  “Drinkin'” which is very country.  “Railroads” rocks a bit more and has an interesting sounding chorus.  But it’s “Waitin’ on June,” a story song about her grandparents (not on the Williams side) that is beautiful and touching (although I really don’t like the way she sings the word “June,” but that’s just me).

[READ: February 18, 2016] “The House Behind a Weeping Cherry”

This story is about a young Chinese man, Wanren, who has set out for New York to try to benefit his family.  He is shocked to find that he is working in a sweatshop (he left China for this?) pressing clothes.

He has been living in the upstairs apartment of a house owned by Mrs Chen.  But his roommate has just left because he couldn’t handle the fact that the women who lived down the hall were prostitutes (who paid Mrs Chen).

When the roommate moves out Wanren is afraid Mrs Chen will raise the rent. But instead, she asks if he will drive the girls to their appointments at local hotels.  Mrs Chen assures him that he wont get in trouble with the police and he reluctantly agrees.

The rest of the story unfolds with the narrator becoming more friendly with the three girls.

Lili is the meanest of the three. She speaks the best English and answers the phone.  Nana is friendly, but it’s Huong who is the best cook and the prettiest of the three.  Wanren likes her the best.  Lili suggests that he should buy one of them for the night since he has no girlfriend, but he knows not get involved.  He doesn’t want to play favorites even though he has one.

The two of them wind up eating dinner together and sharing their living space a lot more.

He desperately wishes the girls could stop their life and do something legal, but all three of them have serious debts to pay.  Huong owes a Coyote $2000 a month for the expense of getting her to the US.

He learns about the johns and what type of people they are.  Some are married looking for something different.  Some are widows just looking for advice.  For the most part the girls aren’t ever treated that badly. Sometimes the johns go too far–one bit Huong very hard once, and another client turned out to be two men who were both so rough with her so that she couldn’t walk the next day.

One night when a client wouldn’t leave (some made house calls) Wanren stepped in to help.  And now the women like him even more.

This story is something a of a “hooker with a heart of gold” story, but the added details of their illegal status, their trying to raise money to go home and their having to pay off other men puts an interesting twist on it

Finally, the narrator finds them some honest work, but it will never pay enough.  They go to the coyote to see about changing the terms of her payment but he more or less says that if they try plaything he knows where they live.

The story is hopeless.  But somehow the ending adds a slight ray of hope, as unbelievable as it may be.

In writing about the story it seems less good than when I was reading it, but I really enjoyed the characters, especially Wanren, and seeing how his mind worked.  Even if some parts were rather cliched.

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George Saunders–“Who Are All These Trump Supporters” (New Yorker, July 11 & 18, 2016)

Posted in Consumerism, Corporate skewering, donald tRUMP, Dystopia, Essays, Fears, George Saunders, Greed, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Humiliation, Lydia Loveless, Lydia Lunch, New Yorker, Poverty, Religion, The Byrds, The Knitters, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, X, Yuck! on July 22, 2016| Leave a Comment »

CoverStory-KadirNelson-ADayattheBeach3-879x1200-1467305948SOUNDTRACK: LYDIA LOVELESS-Tiny Desk Concert #369 (July 1, 2014).

lovelssI want Lydia Loveless to be a punk singer–Her name is like a combination of Lydia Lunch and a last name that conjures up an asskicking punk.

But not the country singer that Loveless is (even if she is ass-kicking herself). Loveless is a new breed of alt-country which is pretty explicit with noticeably rocking guitar solos.  But her voice is so twangy it’s hard to not call it country (and in fact it’s a bit too much for me to take sometimes).

“Head” features this rather memorable chorus “Don’t stop getting undressed /Don’t stop giving me head.”  It seems especially surprising since Loveless looks like she’s about 12 (she was 23 at the time of this recording).  The buzzy solo is lengthy and more or less runs throughout the song.  Although at some point when Loveless takes her own solo the whole sound seems to fade out and get a little anemic.

Her band is fun with her bassist being very tall and having very long hair playing a very tall upright bass.  And then there’s another guy playing guitar and lap steel.

“Verlaine Shot Rimbaud” has a title that begs for an awesome song.  It’s not an epic masterpiece or anything.  In fact its closer to a pop song, The slide guitar and Loveless’ heavy accent on the chorus place it firmly in the country camp.

“Mile High” has a fun folk riff.  It sounds a lot like The Byrds and the chorus is super catchy.  If I could get her to sing less twangy I would love this song much like I love the punk country of X, or at least the Knitters.

[READ: December 29, 2010] “Who are All These Trump Supporters”

[This essay in the New Yorker also came under the heading “Trump Days.”]

So the title of the essay is a question I myself have been asking as I watch the hatred and vitriol bubble over during the convention.

If there was anyone I wanted to write this piece it would be George Saunders and he is actually the only reason I read it in the first place (I plan to read all of his contributions to the New Yorker eventually, but I’m glad to have read this one when it was timely–I hope it will be utterly irrelevant by the time I get to the rest of his works).  He self identifies as a liberal (although he was a conservative who loved Ayn Rand way back in the Reagan era).  He is a thoughtful and not prone to anger–a perfect foil for the crowd.  And he’s got a great way with words.

So great in fact that I’m just going to be quoting him a lot.  I could have pulled more excellent quotes from the essay, but really you should read the whole thing. (more…)

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Glenn Eichler & Joe Infurnari–Mush! Sled Dogs with Issues (2011)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Advice, Brandy Clark, Dogs, First Second :01, Glenn Eichler, Graphic Novel, Greed, Joe Infurnari, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfunny, Violence, Yuck! on July 6, 2016| Leave a Comment »

muashSOUNDTRACK: BRANDY CLARK-Tiny Desk Concert #542 (June 20, 2016).

brandyCountry is pretty much the only genre I really don’t like, and, sadly for me, the genre seems to be seeping over into areas that I like (such as what happened in the alt-country movement in the 90s).  The one saving grace, (and actually major draw), of a lot of this new country is that the songwriters are exploring new lyrical territory.  And in particular, the women are writing sassy, funny, ass-kicking songs.

Brandy Clark (in black leather pants no less) has written for many other singers and finally decided to do her own stuff.

The entire lyric of “Daughter” is hilarious.  It’s an awesome revenge fantasy which, as the blurb suggests, “knows that fate is likely to do more damage to a cad than a key would ever do to his car’s glossy paint job.”

It’s got the great chorus:

I hope you have a daughter and I hope that she’s a fox / Daddy’s little girl just as sweet as she is hot / she can’t help to love them boys who love to love and leave them just like her father / Yes karma’s a bitch so I hope you have a daughter.

The second song is a sentimental song about her dead father.  The melody is very pretty, but I don’t need to hear songs like this.

But it’s back to the funny with the really sassy “Girl Next Door.”  It takes to task another cheating man:

If you want the girl next store then go next door… [much faster] and go right now and don’t look back and don’t turn around don’t call me when you get bored, yeah if you want the girl next door then go next door.

It’s a genius line and I really like the tone of her voice in this song (less twangy and more angry).  It could make me like country more.

[READ: April 1, 2016] Mush!

The title of this book promised a very funny story.  I really didn’t expect the “issues” to be quite so existential.

This book is broken into 10 chapters, with the first one opening on a man and his sled dogs mushing across the frozen tundra (actually Alaska).  We are introduced to The Boss and his Mate and the six dogs (from the dog’s perspective).  And then we see the dogs talking to each other. The crux of their conversation is that they are bored and wish they were running.  The lead dog, Dolly, loves to run, although she is unsure is she is qualified to lead the other dogs.

For some reason Buddy has a really big nose and is rather dumb.

Then we jump inside the house and see some intense friction.  The man of the house is a loner, a rebel, Dottie.  He hates society and doesn’t even like going into the city to get supplies.  His mate, meanwhile, loves him and wants to be with him–she knows the risks and troubles of doing it off the grid, but she also likes to go into town from time to time.  And she misses apricots.  Frankly, he is such a dick that I can’t imagine why she stays with him. (more…)

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