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Archive for the ‘Violence’ Category

Juan Diaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido–Blacksad: A Silent Hell (2010) [translated 2012]

Posted in Animals, Bart Beatty, Blawan, Girl Band, Graphic Novel, Guns, Juan Díaz Canales, Juanjo Guarnido, Katie LaBarbera, Mystery, Noir, Record Labels, Sex, Translation, Violence on March 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »

blacksad4SOUNDTRACK: GIRL BAND-“Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?” (2014).

girl band I first heard about Girl Band from the NPR Austin 100 list.  This song blew me away.  It is a noisy and unrelenting 8 minutes.  It builds and builds into a chaotic tumult.  And, amazingly, it is a cover of a dance song.

Girl Band is from Dublin and they make some of the noisiest rock I’ve heard in a long time.  Not heavy rumbling death metal noise, but ear-piercing feedback and squalls and sqwaks of sound that are heard to imagine originating with a guitar or bass.

It open with controlled chaos, and clearly some kind of pedal manipulation from the sounds generated by… a guitar?

The lyrics are minimal–a simple repeat of “Why they hide they bodies under my garage?”  These lyrics are repeated, more frenetically with the “music” just squeals of feedback and noise.  The song doesn’t seem to change much, but there are subtle (if that’s the right word) changes in noise and intensity for four minutes until the song sorta stops and then resumes with even more intensity.  It drops out again, but by 6 minutes the song has built to epic intensity, with interesting sounds in between “chants.”

There is pretty much nothing to this song and yet it is amazingly intense.  And not for the faint of heart.

This song is from an earlier compilation release but is getting reissued on their soon to be released EP.  (You can get a lot of their early stuff from their bandcamp site).

The video is creepy as anything too:

You can also hear the original by Blawan, which is similar without the building intensity, I tend to think that Girl Band has done this song a real service.

[READ: December 20, 2014] Blacksad: A Silent Hell

I had gotten the latest Blacksad book at work, so I looked to see if I could find the earlier editions. I couldn’t find the first book right away so I decided to dive in with this book.  It is the second collection, but is apparently the fourth book.  The first collection, simply titled Blacksad collects the first three books together.  The books were originally written in French and were translated by Katie LaBarbera.

I don’t know how much if any introduction there is in that first book, so there’s no context for why these animals are people or people are animals.  And I rather hope there isn’t one.  It’s just a great world where everyone looks human except that their heads are a (very realistic) animal shape.  In fact speaking of realistic, the artwork by Guarnido is amazing–perfectly noir with incredible realism and gorgeous colors (all done with watercolors, I believe).

This book opens with Blacksad, a private investigator, and Weekly, a reporter, at a strip club.  (It is disconcerting that the stripper is a leopard woman and that she is really hot (thankfully, it’s only shown from the back because that would get weird).  Weekly is super psyched but Blacksad has other things on his mind.  They are supposed to be meeting Junior Harper but he ain’t showing.

The pull back shows that we are in New Orleans. (more…)

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T.C. Boyle–“No Slant to the Sun” (Harper’s, March 2015)

Posted in Canadian Music, Harper's, Ian Anderson, Racism, Rheostatics, Short Story, T. Coraghessan Boyle, T.C. Boyle, Vacation, Violence, tagged on March 15, 2015| Leave a Comment »

harp marchSOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Call the Office London, On (August 11, 2000).

calltheofficeCall the Office sounds like a great live venue.  It sounds small and intimate and, for this recording anyway, the sound quality is great.

The band is in great form with a ten minute version of “Fat.”   Then there’s a bunch of new songs: “In It Now” (the first time I’m aware of them playing it), “CCYPA” and a great version of “The Fire.”

Then they jump back to an old song and play “Torque Torque” with a very funny introduction about how they wrote this back in the early 60s and that it out-dorks the Doors (the Doors had no bass player).  Dave also says they’ll never play Full Moon Over Russia because it’s too hard.

There’s a lengthy introduction to “Satan is the Whistler” in which Martin tells about writing it–how it was originally going to be about Bigfoot (he used to read Bigfoot books as a kid) and the scariest thing about the Bigfoot stories was when people heard whistling.  The intro devolves into some funny talk about Whistler, the city, and extreme sports.  Someone eventually winds up describing the song as Ian Anderson skiing.

There’s a sadly aborted “Junction Foil Ball.”  Not sure if they just never played it or if there’s a problem with the recording.

There’s also an “off color” joke about Michael Jackson and Bubbles and Dave teases the jokester (Don Kerr?) saying that a guy with neck beard shouldn’t make off color jokes.

“Feed Yourself” a song they don’t play often enough sounds great here with some awesome soloing chords and effects in the middle.  And “Legal Age Life” also has some funny silly parts in the solos.

“Horses” (which the fans have been cheering for all night) sounds fantastic–a great version of it.  The middle section has Dave talking and ranting (all with his voice echoed).  It’s quite intense.  As is the final “Moon” high note at the end of “Dope Fiends and Booze Hounds” which they cap off with another fast run through “Satan.”

As I said this is a great sounding bootleg (and the notes on the site agree: “This is one of the best sounding Rheos boots I have heard. Listen to Don’s drumming. It is awesome. I loved seeing him play.”

[READ: March 2, 2015] “No Slant to the Sun”

I have read so many stories by Boyle, and they are all so very different that I never really know what to expect–or even where they will go.

This story begins with the title–“there as no slant to the sun–it was just there, overhead.”  It is about a man, Sten, and his wife Carolee on vacation.  They are on a cruise and are currently taking a day trip to an island garden path (although he seems unsure where they are–not Mexico or Guatemala or Belize–somewhere with a lot of rum where they listen to reggae).

They, along with everyone else, are on a bus, being driven maniacally by a man wearing earbuds (listening to reggae) as he flies over potholes and around harsh left and right turns.

Sten refuses to drink the water here even though everyone else does. And despite his thirst he sticks only to the rum based drinks (and so is a bit drunk and parched).  He will only drink bottled water, but he forgot his bottle.  When Carolee falls asleep he roots through her purse for her water (which he then drops and it rolls under another seat).

All the people on the bus (mostly older retirees) are unhappy with the driving.  Finally Sten gets up to say something to man and even flicks out his ear buds.  But the man ignores him, clearly disgusted by the white people on the bus.  He grudgingly says they can have a restroom break in five minutes, although it’s more like 15 before they get to the site of their hike–something that Sten now regrets given the heat and his thirst.

As soon as they settle in, a car roars up next to them and some local boys get out.  One has a gun.  And the boys start demanding everybody’s wallets and jewels.

It’s then that we learn that Sten was once in the military.   And he has to decide if he should react to this insolence.

The story went in a direction I absolutely did not expect.  I enjoyed it, especially the way the ancillary characters react to what happens.  I never intentionally seek out Boyle, but I always enjoy his stories (and I am astonished at how prolific he is).

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Michael DeForge–First Year Healthy (2015)

Posted in Cats, Drawn & Quarterly, Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, Michael Deforge, T-Pain, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence on March 6, 2015| Leave a Comment »

first yearSOUNDTRACK: T-PAIN-Tiny Desk Concert #400 (October 29, 2014).

tpainA while back I was writing about all the Tiny Desk Concerts.  Then they started airing new ones several times a week and I realized the goal was futile.  Of course, since I like to complete projects, I may go back to it again, but not for a while.  Nevertheless, while I was looking up the Tiny Desk Contest winners I came across a list of superlatives from 2014 Tiny Desk Concerts.  And the one that struck me was that the T-Pain Tiny Desk Concert had been viewed over 6 million times (3 times more than the previous high water mark).  It was over 7 million when I watched it). So I decided to check it out.

I don’t know anything about T-Pain other than that he is associated with auto tune and even has an auto tune microphone for sale (which I would totally buy if I saw it for cheaper than retail). I don’t think I’ve ever even heard a T-Pain song.  So I assumed he couldn’t sing.  Which is a pretty common reaction: “People felt like I was using it to sound good,” says T-Pain.  “But I was just using it to sound different.”

And indeed. T-Pain has a beautiful voice.  The Tiny Desk Concert is just him and a keyboardist (named Toro). They play 3 songs
“Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin’),” “Up Down (Do This All Day),” “Drankin’ Patna.”

I don’t know what the originals sound like (given the spelling, I assume they are not as sweet and tender as these versions were). But these are very simple, stripped down songs.  The music is just keyboard notes, no rhythm tracks or any effects.  And then T-Pain singing.

He is charming because the setting is so weird to him (as I imagine it is) and he even “censors” a line in a very funny way. I’m not going to be buying a T-Pain CD or anything, but I was delighted by this Tiny Desk.

[READ: March 2, 2015] First Year Healthy

I saw the cover of this book at work and decided I had to see what it was all about.

The artwork in this book is so bizarre–delightful and creepy at the same time.  For instance, the cover image up there is a baby and a cat (I love that the cat’s eyes are “sideways”).  Even more interesting is the way the main character looks.

That image below is the main character.  That is all her hair.  So weird and yet so interesting at the same time.

firstThe story is a bit less sweet than the drawings.  But it is no less unusual than the drawings.

(more…)

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Malachai Nicolle & Ethan Nicolle–Axe Cop: Volume 4: President of the World (2013)

Posted in Animation Domination High Def, Axe Cop, Children's Books, Death, Enormodome, Ethan Nicolle, Graphic Novel, Malachai Nicolle, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest, Violence, Yuck!, Zombies on March 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »

axe4SOUNDTRACK: ENORMODOME-“I’m Gonna Love You” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).

enormodomeLast week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.

I know very little about these bands, so I don’t know if they are on the trend (opposite of yesterday) of two guys playing really loud music.  And man, they rock the office.  Sometimes a gimmick makes you want to watch a video, but the song has to be good for you to watch it more than once.

This video was filmed in the office of the Mayor of Flagstaff–what a good sport!  I love that they have his employees coming around and working as usual while these two guys are making an unholy racket.

I’ve been very impressed with most of the two person bands who really make a very full sound.  And this one is no exception.  I was sure there were more than two guys playing along.  And their voices gel nicely.  The only weak spot is during the solo, when the rest of the  guitars drop out so it’s a little too spare.  But aside from that the song is a great rocker.  I like the simple blues riff, but I really like the way the middle section (before the solo) messes with that riff somewhat–it’s very cool.

[READ: February 22, 2015] Axe Cop Volume 4

axechopLike Volume 2, Axe Cop Volume 4 is a full length story.  This one pushes the idea that came up in a previous book that Axe Cop is President of the World.  For the writing of this book Malachai was 8 years old.  It was at this point that I started to wonder how different the stories of an 8-year-old would be from those of a 5-year-old.  Since my son is nine, I know that he understands the logic of storytelling a bit more and he even understands the internal logic of stories, so I assumed that Malachai’s stories would be more linear and less surreal.

And of course, the nature of a big graphic novel like this is that it must be linear and coherent.

I liked that the book opened with something we hadn’t seen before–Axe Cop is having a recurring nightmare about a talking gorilla.

But then we get down to business.  As president, Axe Cop is going to live in the Gold House in the real Washington (not DC). But his real business comes down to one question–since he got rid of all the bad guys, the people want to know if they will ever come back.  Axe Cop talks to God (!) and is told that they will come back in 1 million years, but until then it is time for peace in the world. (more…)

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Malachai Nicolle & Ethan Nicolle–Axe Cop: Volume 3 (2012)

Posted in Advice, Axe Cop, Children's Books, Chronicles of Narnia, Death, Ethan Nicolle, Graphic Novel, Malachai Nicolle, Michael J. Nelson, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Nick Offerman, Spirits of the Red City, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest, Vampires, Violence, Yuck!, Zombies on March 1, 2015| Leave a Comment »

axe3SOUNDTRACK: SPIRITS OF THE RED CITY-“Halfway Poem” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).

spiirtdLast week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.

I know very little about these bands, but I assume that this folkie collective uses this kind of instrumentation all the time, although I have to suggest that two upright basses and a viola seems excessive.  The beginning of this video shows an early aborted attempt with different instruments (accordion, banjo, flute, drum and ukulele), so that sounds promising–and honestly the overload of large strings doesn’t sound bad at all in the final product.

It’s interesting that bands with lots of members are a kind of trend–it’s so impractical.  And yet when done well, it’s quite lovely.  And when these seven folks starts singing along near the end of the song it’s really pretty.

The story of this video is also interesting.  They had planned to film their video outside.  But on the day of their video shoot it was 33 degrees below zero (in Minnesota).  They have some brief footage at the beginning and then the video switches to them inside a quite cozy cabin.

It’s hard to tell from just this one song what kind of folk collective Spirits of the Red City is, but I enjoyed this song quite a bit.

[READ: February 20, 2015] Axe Cop Volume 3

Axe Cop Volume 3 returns to the format of Volume 1 (the one I liked better) with a mix of shorter comics and the return of Ask Axe Cop!

The first comic we see features the return of Bat Warthog Man and features the practical science of Chemist M (whom Axe Cop buys for ten dollars). It also has a chihuahua who was a soldier that was turned into a chihuahua when the soldier’s dog bit him (Malachai’s understanding of how transformations work makes me hope he never gets bitten by anything).  The dog can turn back into a man “only when I am not ready to fight…which is almost never.”  There’ also a hilarious scene where Axe Cop is inside the imagination of a mouse which is in color and is “full of unicorns and cheese.”

The Ask Axe Cops are more intense in these later variations, like the one that asks if he ever got in trouble (he got in trouble with his mom when he chopped the head off a rabbit who was not following rabbit rules).  We also see the introduction of head trash–a place where all the heads that axe cop has removed are disposed.  There’s dating advice (very sound); a jumping competition and a hilarious bit about Halloween (where he gets 1,051 candies to share with his friends, but the bad guys have poisoned 1,040 pieces of it.  There is also Axe Cop’s strangely violent generosity on Thanksgiving (yipes).  (more…)

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Malachai Nicolle & Ethan Nicolle–Axe Cop: Volume 2: Bad Guy Earth (2011)

Posted in Axe Cop, Children's Books, Death, Ethan Nicolle, Graphic Novel, Malachai Nicolle, Reina Del Cid, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest, Violence, Yuck!, Zombies on February 28, 2015| Leave a Comment »

axe2SOUNDTRACK: REINA DEL CID-“The Cooling” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).

coolingLast week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.

I know very little about these bands, so I don’t know if this is Reina del Cid’s normal band or what.  But I love the sound of this orchestral chamber pop.  There are plenty of chamber pop bands, but there’s something about the melody of this song that works so perfectly with the strings.

There are seven people in the video (Reina is the singer).  I love the way the song starts out with some pizzicato guitar and slowly building violin strings.  I also love the starts and stops that the song has–very dramatic.  And it all works so well with Reina’s voice which doesn’t soar or hit super high notes, rather it is just powerful and strong and very pretty (even when she does an occasional mmm mmm).

When the song builds to its climax, the violins switch to pizzicato and the drums grow louder.  It’s quite lovely and I’d like to hear more from her (them).  I gather that the new album is coming out in May!

[READ: February 19, 2015] Axe Cop Volume 2

I enjoyed Axe Cop Volume 1 so much I couldn’t wait to jump into Volume 2.  But something was different.

This book was made for Dark Horse as a three issue arc.  It’s in color and it’s all one long story.  Ethan is super proud of it, and I think he should be, it’s pretty impressive that he and his brother (now aged 6) were able to come up with such a huge story.

But I found that like the longer stories in volume 1, I got a little bored by the end of this book.  Indeed, I let Clark read the first book (it was placed in the YA book section, but I figured if it was written by a  5-year-old, my nine-year old could read it).  He liked the first book but only gave this one a few pages before he gave up.  He likes Ask Axe Cop best too. (more…)

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Malachai Nicolle & Ethan Nicolle–Axe Cop: Volume 1 (2010)

Posted in Archer, Axe Cop, Children's Books, Cold Blue Mountain, Death, Ethan Nicolle, Graphic Novel, Kevin Murphy, Malachai Nicolle, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Nick Offerman, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest, Violence, Yuck! on February 27, 2015| Leave a Comment »

axw1SOUNDTRACK: COLD BLUE MOUNTAIN-“White North” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).

cbm Last week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.

I know very little about these bands, and I seriously hope that the guys from Cold Blue Mountain look like this when they play all the time.

This may be the best set up and reveal of a joke that actually contains an awesome song.  The video is 4 and a half minutes long, but the music doesn’t start for nearly a minute and a half as the set up proceeds.

When the music starts it is heavy, like really heavy, but beyond heavy there’s a great riff mixed into the music on the second guitar–it’s a great sound.

But the “joke” isn’t over, since at 2 minutes the music stops for 20 seconds until the next reveal comes in.  It’s pretty awesome.

My only gripe is that I don’t like the vocals (growly cookie monster type)–they work pretty well with the music, but it’s not something I want to listen to, which is shame since the song really really rocks.

And the video is awesome.

[READ: February 15, 2015] Axe Cop Vol. 1

After watching Archer on FX the other week I saw a few minutes of an animated show called Axe Cop which looked weird and silly and starred Nick Offerman as Axe Cop.  I only watched a few minutes of it and then went to bed.  A few days later I was in the library and saw four volumes of Axe Cop books.  Well, I had to check that out right away.

And here’s what I learned.  Axe Cop is a web comic that was drawn by Ethan Nicolle.  But the best part is that Axe Cop was written by Ethan’s younger brother who was 5 at the time.  That’s right, five.  So Axe Cop comes from the delightfully twisted imagination of a (rather precocious in my opinion) five year old.

This book collects the beginning web comics, including the first slew of Ask Axe Cop, perhaps my favorite feature of the comic.  It also has a forward by Mystery Science Theater 3000’s Kevin Murphy!

In the beginning, there was Axe Cop.  No, in the beginning Ethan tells about how he was visiting his younger brother over a Christmas break and they started playing with action figures and what not.  And one of the guys was a firefighter with an axe.  Malachai didn’t want to play fireman, so he called this guy Axe cop.  Ethan decided to make a comic out of it and it all started from there. (more…)

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Brendan Connell–The Metanatural Adventures of Dr. Black (2014)

Posted in Artists, Bartolomeo Suardi, Bramantino, Brendan Connell, Food, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gambling, Guns, Jeff VanderMeer, Jens Lekman, Kodagain, Saša Zorić Čombe, Sex, Smarty Pants, Violence on February 26, 2015| 1 Comment »

Connell Dr.Black jacketSOUNDTRACK: KODAGAIN-“King of Curls” (2014).

supernaturalWhen I looked for a picture of this book cover, I was connected to Connell’s blog which has links to many songs by Kodagain. After some more work, I learned that Kodagain features music by Saša Zorić Čombe and lyrics by Brendan Connell!

It was hard to find any real details about Kodagain (they have a media presence, but it is rather abbreviated), until I saw their soundcloud page which gives these nuggets of information

  • Kodagain formed in 1985 in Knjazevac, SE Serbia, where it’s hard to be alternative but easy to be alone.
  • Kodagain writes and records songs with English lyrics because English is more musical than Serbian.
  • Kodagain has a miniaturist approach to pop music, channelling influences from Henry Purcell, through Dean Martin, to Roxy Music, into short compositions combining a bubblegum-pop concern for melody with lo-fi experimentalism, resulting in songs as soulful as they are playful.
  • Many of the lyrics have been provided by the existing poetry of famous poets such as Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde, Chu-I Po (Bai Juyi), Lord Byron, Ogden Nash, Sara Teasdale, Louisa Stuart Costello and Robert Creely.
  • Since 2007, Kodagain has also been using … original lyrics from the writer Quentin S. Crisp; since 2012, Kodagain has similarly collaborated with the writer Brendan Connell.  Brendan Connell says: “My ultimate goal is to write a vast number of lyrics about natural wonders, public parks, lost watches, Indian villages, hidden love, birds, trees, mountain passes, fake Taoists, imperceptible colors, rhetorical mysteries, and flowers. Ideally these would be compounded into a ‘Guide for Modern Life’ which could be used to build better relations between workers and their bosses, the various sexes, and those whose religious beliefs differ.”
  • Their songs and videos can be found in generous supply on YouTube and SoundCloud. Albums include: Speed Up, The Nowhere Land’s Echoes, A Drink With Something In It, 000, Vranje, Letters From Quentin, Time to Get Ready for Love, My Fear of His Fear of Death, and Supernatural.

Since encountering Kodagain, I have become totally transfixed by them.  The melodies are simple and lovely and Zorić Čombe’s voice is gentle but wise.  Lyrically the songs are certainly all over the place, and most of the songs are under 2 minutes long.  The instrumentation is simple–usually a gentle guitar, steady drums and multi-tracked voices.

It was really hard to pick a song to talk about because there are so many.  But I decided to pick “King of Curls,” in part because the video is fantastic, and so are the lyrics

If I ruled the world
I’d call myself
The King of Curls

If I were king
I’d change damn near
Everything

If I ruled the world
My army wouldn’t fight wars
But rather eat chocolate bars
And move to the beat
In shorts
While my advisors wise
Would do jazzercise

(and that’s just the first part!)

Zorić Čombe’s voice sounds a bit to me like a smoother Jens Lekman (although that could just be the enunciation style).  I find his songs utterly enchanting.

And if you look on YouTube, you’ll find dozens of videos–most of which are masterpieces of found footage.

[READ: February 20, 2015] The Metanatural Adventures of Dr Black

About 7 years ago, I read a novella called Dr Black and the Guerrillia and I liked it quite a lot.  I liked that Connell created this character, with no apparent context (at least none given in the story) and that it was so amazingly detailed and “real” and yet so seemingly unreal–an unsatisfying word which Connell has corrected for me with the title of this collection–Metanatural.

This book is something of a collection of short stories about Dr. Black, but it is far more than that.  It collects some of the adventures that Dr. Black has been on as well as some of the patents and other ephemera and fashions a kind of narrative (although a very sketchy narrative) about the life he leads.

Before I even get to the “plot” of the book, I need to say just how much I enjoyed reading this book. I was absolutely captivated by Connell’s voice.  Over the years I have known that Connell was an accomplished writer with an unparalleled attention to detail and to choosing the precise word.  But somehow in the Dr. Black stories Connell’s details and specifics push the narrative to real heights.  Perhaps it is because Dr Black seems so real that when anything “metanatural” happens to him, it is entirely believable–drawing you into his exploits even further.  I really wanted to read more and more.

Having said all that, while this book is certainly his most accessible, it is still not light reading.  Connell challenges the reader with his extensive vocabulary, his lack of compunction about throwing in some obscure sections of text (that I won’t pretend I understood, but which didn’t bother me at all) and his willingness to defy reality, which may lose some readers.  But the rewards of the stories are worth it. (more…)

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The Oatmeal–5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth (and other useful guides) (2011)

Posted in Drinking, Esquivel, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Katamari Damacy, Seinfeld, The Oatmeal, Video Games, Violence, Wendy Carlos, Yuck! on February 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

oatmealSOUNDTRACK: KATAMARI DAMACY SOUNDTRACK (2004).

katamari In the xkcd post from yesterday Munroe made a joke about driving to Katamari Damacy.  I didn’t know what that was (well, I figured it was a video game, of course). It turns out to be a puzzle type game for PS2.  Since we have a Wii, I’ll never get to play it.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the groovy soundtrack.

The soundtrack to this game incorporates real, interesting music instead of an 8-bit-sounding theme (it won awards back in 2004).  And it is really wild and fun.

I’m focusing on the first two tracks, because there’s just too much to deal with here, but the whole things is trippy and interesting (and most songs are over 3 minutes).

“Nanana Katamari” is the opening song.  It’s upbeat and bouncy, with a simple Nanana vocal line (with some mild beatboxing in between).  It introduced the melody that runs throughout the disc (in various permutations).  After the first few lines, an 8-bit synth line comes in, making it seem like it’s a typical video game soundtrack.  But this is just the intro–and it lasts for just under 90 seconds.  But when “Katamari on the Rock” opens, with some weird glitchy sounds and drums, you have no idea what you’re in for.  Soon, the music turns The music is jazzy and boppy with a kind of Esquivelish “wha??” feeling.  There’s singing, there’s big flourishes and little comments (yea!) and it just sounds fantastic.  I can’t even imagine how this works in the game.

“The Moon and the Prince” is also glitchy sounding, but with some fun spoken (Japanese?) words and a fun beat.  There’s also tracks called “Katamari Mambo” and “Last Samba” showing a vast diversity in musical styles.  And, this being a (Japanese) video game, there’s also some really weird things like the 3 minute “You Are Smart” which is just a synthetic robot saying the title words over and over on top of an electronic riff.  Or “Katamari March Damacy” which sounds like a Wendy Carlos synth song with electronic voices.  Or “Wanda Wanda” which is mostly people saying Wandubadubaduba over and over with some really weird and cool synth music accompanying it.  And yet “A Crimson Rose and a Gin Tonic” opens with the drums of a classic jazz song (the one that Woody Allen uses all the time) and even seems to reference “It Don’t Mean a Thing.”  The Japanese female singer could be singing in Japanese or just scatting, but it doesn’t matter because it sounds great.

There’s even a pretty love song (sung in English) called “Que Sera Sera (not that song, no).  I saw someone on a forum say that he wanted to play it at his upcoming wedding (wonder how that worked out).  It opens with a pretty piano melody and some nonsense syllables before the lyrics come in:

I know you love me
I wanna wad you up into my life
Let’s roll up to be a single star in the sky

I hear you calling me
I wanna wad you up into my life
Let’s lump up to make a single star in the sky
To you, to you

The fact that on different tracks, the singers sing in both Japanese and highly accented English adds an incredible quirkiness to the mix.  As does “Cherry Blossom Color Season” which is sung by children.  The penultimate song “Katamari Love” song is probably a cheesy pop metal song but since it’s sung in Japanese (which means I don’t have to know what the lyrics are) and has a total ROCK STAR feel, I love it.

It’s a fascinating soundtrack, one that was not intended to be listened to with out the game (I assume) and yet one which works quite well on its own.  And opens up some interesting cultural mash ups.

[READ: February 11, 2015] 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth

This weekend is all about old(ish) books of things compiled from the internet which you can already find for free online.

I love The Oatmeal.  Or, as I found out when reading this book, I love the Oatmeal when people send me their favorite jokes.  Because The Oatmeal has some simply outstanding jokes, but there are a lot of jokes in this book that I thought were just okay–not as hilarious as his best stuff.  Which makes me a judgmental jerk, and I acknowledge that.  But the titular joke about punching dolphins is so poor compared to the rest that aside from the shock value, I can’t imagine why it would be chosen for the title.

The best The Oatmeal jokes are linguistic and/or angry.  But there is a whole side category of surprising informative cartoons about various subjects: beer, coffee, cheese (disgusting and true) and many other subjects. (more…)

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John Layman & Rob Guillory–Chew: Volume Eight: “Family Recipes” (2014)

Posted in Chastity Belt, Food, Food Luv, Graphic Novel, John Layman, Rob Guillory, Sex, Violence, Yuck! on February 20, 2015| Leave a Comment »

chew8SOUNDTRACK: CHASTITY BELT-“Dude” (2012) and “Seattle Party” (2013).

chasdudeThe Dude EP is 3 songs recorded after the first EP and with some dudes in the rhythm section.  On this record: Julia Shapiro, Lydia Lund, Peter Richards, Andrew Hall.

The record sounds a bit less trebly, which I like.  And there are loud backing vocals which is interesting (especially on “Pony Tail”: “cut it off cut it off” and “Alines” : “put your tentacles inside me.”

You’ve got a long pony tail and you look like my mom (another verse: you look like Steven Segall and the great rhyme: you look like Thomas Jefferson/Jennifer Aniston).  “Aliens” has a fun riff and an interesting guitar sound.  “Cadaver” sounds really full, with Shaprio’s voice fitting right in to the more bass driven sound.

chas seattle“Seattle Party” is a single from their debut full length No Regerts, which I’m only including here to show the album cover.  It’s something of a maturation (using the term loosely) musically–with a slow, unshouted chorus, although I don’t think it’s the most likely single on the album.

[READ: January 25, 2015] Chew: Volume Eight

Book Eight of the series (the last one I have until book nine comes out later this year) reminds us that even when people die in fiction they can still come back–especially with a supernatural story like this.  Well, come back is not the right phrase.  Show up again is more suited. Because in this book Tony Chu is able to imbibe a (revolting) concoction and speak to a dearly departed deceased person.

But before we even get to that we see how it was possible.

We also meet Tony and Toni’s baby sister Sage.  Sage also has food related “gifts” but she hates hers.  Sage is Cipropanthropatic–she can see the memories of anyone who is sitting near her if they are eating the same thing–so she goes to great lengths to try to avoid eating what others may also be eating.  It turns out that Sage has just discovered that the person eating next to her is a murderer and also the head of a crime family.

Chapter two introduces us to Ken Keebler, the eroscibopctaros, who can take pictures of food which arouse sexual desires in the viewer.  This all ties in with people in jail reading Food Luv magazine (ha).  Currently in that same jail is Mason and that’s when we realize that someone whom we thought was on Tony’s side is actually working with Mason.   And their escape plan involves Ray Jack Montero–the man behind the ban on chickens

In chapter four, Tony’s daughter Olive–an even more powerful Cibopath than her father helps to get on the case.

In chapter five we get to see the fascinating thing that Tony eats.  It has psychotropic powers as well which makes this whole chapter trippy and hilarious.  When Tony sprouts rabbit ears, that’s just the beginning.  And when the final page shows Olive screaming “Holy Shit…cool” you know something big is coming for book nine.

I can’t wait

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