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Archive for the ‘Zombies’ Category

Geoffrey Drayton–“Mr. Dombey, the Zombie” (Barbados) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #11] (1990)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Death, Geoffrey Drayton, Hingston & Olsen, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Zombies on December 11, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 11, 2021] “Mr. Dombey, the Zombie”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

Mr Dombey was, indeed a zombie.  He travelled the morning train every day and read the daily newspaper for his hounsi.  His hounsi was interested in the latest rapes and murders, but not enough to read the paper herself. (more…)

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Terry Pratchett–Reaper Man (1991) [Discworld #11] [Death #2]

Posted in Alfred, Binky, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, Death, Discworld, Funny (ha ha), Magic, Mort, Mustrum Ridcully, Terry Pratchett, The Dean, The Librarian, Unfinished series, Vampires, Wizards, Ysabell, Zombies on October 5, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: October 2021] Reaper Man

This book opens unlike any other, with an amorphous group of beings called The Auditors of Reality.  (Well, it opens with a bit about Morris Dancing, which is pretty funny).  The Auditors have no individual personalities (in fact, when One says I (“I hate them”) it is immediately dispatched so a more neutral Auditor can take its place.

The Auditors want to make sure that everything is following the Rules. And what isn’t following the Rules?  Well, Death isn’t following the rules.  Death is developing a personality.  And that cannot happen.  So they fire him.  Yes indeed.

He goes off on his own trying to figure things out.  He winds up getting a job as a farm hand (his reaping skills are unparalleled).  The woman he works for is quite suspicious of him (and everyone in town is quite suspicious of her). Death is caught off guard and when she asks his name he comes up with unsuspicious name of Bill Door.

The woman is Miss Fitworth.  She is an elderly woman (rumored to have a large chest with a lot of money in it).  She had a fiancé who went on a business trip and never came back.  Rumor is that he left her, but she doesn’t believe it.

This is all well and good, but without Death, dead humans don’t know what to do–no one is there to guide them to the afterlife.  So they kind of just keep piling up.  Poltergeists run amok.  And then there is aged Wizard Windle Poons.  He was really looking forward to reincarnation.  But after he died, his spirit just returned to his body.  Of course, since he is dead, he doesn’t have any concern with old age–his sight and strength are better than they have been in years.  But everyone is more than a little freaked out by him. (more…)

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Greg Pak, Valeria Favoccia–Stranger Things: Zombie Boys (2020)

Posted in Graphic Novel, Greg Pak, Horror, Pillow Queens, Set at School, The Late Late Show with James Corden, Valeria Favoccia, Violence, YA Books, Yuck!, Zombies on February 19, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PILLOW QUEENS-“Liffey” (Live on the Late Late Show, January 13, 2021).

I learned about Pillow Queens from the book about Irish Drummers.  Rachel Lyons, Pillow Queens’ drummer is interviewed for the book and I thought their band sounded interesting.

I had no idea how good this band would be.  They have released a few EPs and a number of one-off songs on bandcamp.  They released their debut album in September.  To celebrate, the band made their American TV debut on The Late Late Show with James Corden performing “Liffey.”

The band has two leads ingers and all four members sing backing vocals.  As this song opens, Pamela Connolly sings an opening verses while everyone else sings harmony and counterpoint until everything comes crashing in–drums, guitars and bass.  (That’s Sarah Corcoran on bass and Cathy McGuinness playing lead guitar).

There are some cool parts in this song.  The bridge has as series of two note punches, while the verses are supported by soaring single guitar notes.  Lyons’ drumming is a real high point.  There’s martial beats and lots of floor tom (in the video you can see that she’s using mallets all the way though).  Noting her sounds expected and yet it all works together really nicely.

The roaring buzzsaw guitar that ends the song is just perfect.

I’m looking forward to listening to the whole album.

[READ: February 10, 2021] Stranger Things: Zombie Boys 

I get to see all kinds of unexpected things at work–books from other countries, books graphic novels in other languages, even popular novels.  One thing I never expected to see was a Stranger Things graphic novel.  In part because I didn’t know there were any.

But here one is.

This book is set right after Will is rescued from the Upside Down.  He’s been drawing pictures of their adventure.

But at school kids are calling him zombie boy.  Which is no fun.

The only bright spot is AV Club.  But even that’s no fun lately because the boys are all behind in school (what with fighting the forces of evil) and their AV advisor is making them do school work.

Until a new kids comes into the picture.  Joey Kim has just moved to town from San Diego.  His mom works for Sony and he has a brand new betamax film camera.

Their AV advisor says that he’ll see if they can make a movie for extra credit.  But what movie will they make?

That’s when Joey pulls out a drawing that Will made (it fell out of his bag).  The boys love the drawing and think it will make for an awesome zombie movie.

Will’s mom isn’t too keen on him drawing scary pictures–she even takes him to the doctor.  (The doctor is affiliated with the bad guys, but that doesn’t have an bearing on this story).  So Will changes the drawings into zombie joke pictures–it’s a pleasure to eat you, etc..  But the guys are having none of it. And Joey Kim says that it’s horror or nothing.

So they play with make up effects (kielbasa for eaten flesh!) and draw on some of their darker moments (of which they have many) to pull out some acting chops.

Lucas has an important demand though–the black guy always dies in horror movies and he wants Joey to know that this black guy is not going to die.

The book is pretty short and aside from a few of the bullies there’s nothing too dramatic in it–except for a moment when Will goes too deep into a dark place.  But the story line is cool and it feels like a setup for more to come.

I have no idea if Joey Kim is coming in the new season or if he is comics only, but he’s a fun addition for this story line.

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César Aira–Dinner (2006) [translated 2015]

Posted in Borromeo String Quartet, Death, Huh?, Ludwig van Beethoven, Nick Caistor, Religion, Sex, Supernatural, Surreal, Translation, Translators, Violence, Yuck!, Zombies on January 8, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BORROMEO STRING QUARTET-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #127 (December 15, 2020).

This is the second of three Tiny Desk Home Concerts to honor Beethoven’s 250th birth anniversary. 

The Borromeo String Quartet consists of Nicholas Kitchen: (first) violin, Kristopher Tong: violin, Mai Motobuchi: viola and Yeesun Kim: cello (who is Kitchen’s wife).

Beethoven doesn’t score high when it comes to positive personality traits. Paranoid, litigious and a micromanager, Beethoven didn’t suffer fools and often fought with friends. Still, he possessed a well-developed funny bone, which Nicholas Kitchen and company put on display here, along with their own whimsical tiny “desks.” Because of the virus, and the confined space, the players wear masks.

The humorous side of Beethoven’s personality seeps into his music, such as the false stops and musical giggles that fuel his two-minute-long Presto from the Quartet Op. 130, which opens this performance.

“String Quartet in B-flat, Op. 130, II. Presto” has many fast moments and interesting parts where the first violin pays fast melodies but the rest of the quartet plays slow triplets over and over.  This is one of Beethoven’s shortest movements and is full of variety and energy.

For contrast, the Borromeos follow with a serious movement from later on in the same piece, the prayerful Cavatina, which Beethoven said even got him choked up.

This movement is full of serenity and tranquil beauty.  This is called the beklemmt section meaning trouble breathing. 

Kitchen can barely contain himself about the humor in the next piece, “String Quartet in F, Op. 135, II. Presto.”  He says this has a playful melody and “berserk” middle with instruments going all over the place.

More hijinks ensue in the Vivace from the Quartet in F, Op. 135, where Kitchen says the music becomes “completely berserk.”

And finally, in the last movement of the same quartet, Beethoven inserts a musical inside joke, the brunt of which falls on a wealthy music lover who displeased the great composer by not showing up at an important concert.

Kitchen says that Beethoven never met an occasion when he did not have a pun.  And he enjoyed injection his own brand of humor into his pieces.  In “String Quartet in F, Op. 135, IV. Der schwer gefasste Entschluss” there is an inscription: question must it be?  answer: It must be it must be!  Kitchen explains there was a patron who did not attend the premiere of opus 130.  The next day the patron  asked Beethoven to send him the music so his court musicians could play it. Beethoven said he’d send it but “you not only have to pay the price of admission for the concert you missed but for everyone in your family.”  The man looked at him and said “Must It be?”  Beethoven wrote a canon for four men to sing “it must be it must be.”  Then he made that joke the basis of the last movement of Op. 135.

[READ: January 3, 2021] Dinner

The Linden Tree was an interesting trip down memory lane for Aira.  

Dinner, by contrast is a wild violent fantasy (translated by Nick Caistor).  But its starts in the mundane–with a man and his mother going to dinner.

The two of them went to his friend’s house.  The friend was a terrible storyteller.  But he and the narrator’s mother had one thing in common–they were great at remembering the names of everyone in Pringles.  They knew the genealogies and configurations of nearly all the families.

But the narrator was terrible at remembering names–he had no facility for it at all.  He had plenty of memories from the town, but could never put a name to an event.

Evernatully the friend brought out a precious toy that he had.  It wa an old and rather sophisticated wind-up toy.  Two separate gears would go at the same time.  As it began to run, the door to a bedroom opened an a fat man came out and started to sing (as well as an old 19th century toy could sing). An old woman was in bed and she began to move back and forth “as a blind person does.” Then the second mechanism kicked in an the bedspread began to move and it looks like flocks of birds were flying out from underneath it. (more…)

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Shirley Hazzard–“Le Nozze” (Harper’s, October 2020)

Posted in Funny (ha ha), Harper's, Ozzy Osbourne, Shirley Hazzard, Short Story, Sparks, Weezer, Zombies on October 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WEEZER-Weezer (The Black Album) (2019).

When the Black Album was announced, the Weezer camp said it would be a reversion back to the blue album or Pinkerton (what people who lovehate Weezer have been wanting since they released the third album).  Well, despite that promise, this album proved to be a genre bending album full of disco beats, remarkably dumb lyrics (what’s up with that PhD Rivers) and of course, super catchy choruses.

No matter what Weezer does, it always sounds like Weezer–perhaps that’s just Rivers Cuomo’s voice or maybe his songwriting sounds the same in any genre.  So this album is almost forty minutes of Weezer in various forms (but nothing too outrageous for them).

“Can’t Knock the Hustle” brings in the disco with a funky 70s synth, backing oohs, and an unexpected mariachi flair when the “hasta luego/adios” line comes in.  Was there ever a less threatening thing than Rivers saying Don’t step to me, bitch.  “Zombie Bastards” is a really dumb lite reggae song but the chorus, with the presumably sampled Yea! is some dumb fun.

“High as a Kite” is a gentle song with some fun bouncy bass and one of the catchiest choruses around.  When you give up hating on Weezer, you can just accept that songs like this are really great to sing along to.  The middle section spreads some more 70s good cheer (with those nice bass notes again).  “Living in L.A.” is a little more aggressive sounding but really poppy with another knockout chorus.  I genuinely love singing along to these two songs.  Everyone thinks of Randy Newman as the “I Love L.A.” guy but by now, Rivers has written more songs about L.A. than anyone, I think.

“Piece of Cake” is a mellow synthy ballad.  It’s not as catchy, but the chorus has a nice hook.

“I’m Just Being Honest” actually sounds like it could be a Weird Al song.  Not musically but lyrically, since it’s basically a lot of truthful insults.  This hearkens back to Pinkerton days, but would do so more if there were some more rocking guitars.  “Too Many Thoughts in My Head” is the most disco of the bunch, with the wah wah guitar and slinky bass.  Even River’s voice sounds different in the verses–whispered and a little sinister.  The chorus rocks in that same slinky electronic style.

“The Prince Who Wanted Everything” is like a 70s monster riff song (although it’s not all that monster sounding) with a sweet chorus. It’s very organic sounding with lots of “do do dos.”  On the opposite end of things is “Byzantine” with its Casio drum beat and processed “ooh ooh oohs.”  It also has the strange pseudo-dis:

I want Neil Young on your phone speaker in the morning
and fuck him if he just can’t see
This is how his songs are supposed to be heard
no more lectures on fidelity.

This song suggests that Rivers was unfamiliar with Sparks before meeting this person, and I find that very hard to believe.

“California Snow” ends this disc with swirling keys and a big synth riff that sounds not unlike “Mr. Crowley”  There’s a sort of hip-hop vibe in the vocal delivery (which doesn’t really work, but whatever).  A catchy chorus is followed by a wholly different sound in the next verse–softer and more “Weezer.”

I don’t know if any new Weezer album is necessary, but I can still enjoy a half hour of Rivers and the guys.

[READ: October 10, 2020] “Le Nozze”

This issue of Harper’s has an essay about Shirley Hazzard on the release of her Collected Stories (from which this story comes).  The article raves about her writing particularly how hard she worked to find the perfect word.  Her most famous work is 1980’s Transit of Venus and she says she that had twenty or thirty drafts per page of the book.  She has written two short story collections, four novels, and a handful of nonfiction (some of which was very critical of the United Nations (!)).  I really enjoyed the essay which made me really want to read her novel.  But I can start with this short story.

In this story, a man and a woman are measuring his room to fit her chest of drawers.  They discuss how there is measuring in Figaro and she begins to sing some of it.  She says that she sang in school and he thinks about what that might have been like.

He is making room for her to move in. (more…)

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Thomas Siddell–Gunnerkrigg Court: Volume 4: Materia (2013)

Posted in Adoption, Adventure, Alternate Reality, Boredom, Canadian Music, Culture Shock, Demons, Elisapie, Fantasy, First Nations, Funny (ha ha), Ghosts, Graphic Novel, Inuit, Lizzo, Magic, Monsters, Myths, Pigeons, Research, Robots, Romance, Science, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Supernatural, Superstitions, Thomas Siddell, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfinished series, Witches, YA Books, Zombies on March 19, 2020| Leave a Comment »

516ZKjM2CqL._SX351_BO1,204,203,200_ (1) SOUNDTRACK: ELISAPIE-Tiny Desk Concert #948 (February 20, 2020).

downloadElisapie (I have no idea how to pronounce that) is a First Nations singer from Salluit, on the Northern tip of Quebec.

She sings in Inuktitut (as well as in English and French).  And her voice is absolutely intense.

Her songs are very personal–she sings of

her life as an adopted child and of meeting her biological mother. Now, as a mother herself, she sings about what it must have meant to her own mother to give up her child.

Elisapie left her birth-village, Salluit, as a teenager and headed to Montreal, leaving her community and her sick mom. The songs she sings, here all come from her album, The Ballad of the Runaway Girl and deal with the consequences of her leaving.

These songs are definitely rock, but with a different overall sound.  Jason Sharp’s bass saxophone is fantastic–creating deep low rumbles and otherworldly squawks.

“Arnaq” opens with some chugging guitar riffs (I can’t tell if the guitar is acoustic or electric) from Joe Grass and after a verse or so, some great noisy electric guitars from Josh Toal, who punctuates the song with little solos.  There’s no bass guitar because the bass saxophone covers all of the low ends.

The song, even though it is in Inuktitut is rally catchy with a chorus of “ahhhhhh, I, yi, I” (or something).

The middle section is full of great noises as both guitars and the sax all play some wild solos.

All of this is held together by “the tasteful drumming of Evan Tighe.”

She says the second song, “Una” is the most painful yet the most freeing song.  It is  written to her biological mother.  In Inuktitut the word for mother means “our little bag” because they carried us.

It opens with slow staccato guitar chords and a near a capella vocal before the quiet electric guitar from Josh Toal joins in.  The spareness of the beginning of this song is a great counterpoint to the end of the song when everyone joins in–vocals, guitars, sax and some complex drumming.

Before the final song, she looks around and smiles and says Lizzo was here!  My daughter is very excited.

The final song “Darkness Bring The Light” opens with some great weird sounds from everyone.  Tighe makes scraping metallic sounds as he slides his drum sticks around the cymbals.  Toal plays a synth intro as Grass bows his guitar and Sharp makes waves of gentle sounds to underpin the melody

This one is in English.  She sings a melody that rides over the sounds.  After 2 minutes the drums kick in and after a run through of the chorus, the guitarists join in

Bob Boilen concludes

This is an extraordinary Tiny Desk from an artist with something meaningful to say.

He is absolutely correct.  This set is fantastic.

[READ: March 10, 2020] Gunnerkrigg Court 4 [32-41]

I really enjoyed the first three books of this series and then promptly forgot about it.  I happened to see this book at the library and was excited to see that I hadn’t read it.  Can it really have been three years since I last read about these characters?

Being away for so long made some of this a little confusing.  I will have to read the whole story again some time.

Chapter 32 shows Antimony returning from the forest and there is a warm welcome with Renard. But Katarina’s welcome is cool–“you kinda make it hard to be your friend.” Antimony tries very hard to make Kat like her again…too hard.  She creates scary situations in which she can “save” Kat,  It doesn’t exactly work, although Kat isn’t really mad anymore, just annoyed.  But then a gigantic creepy monster thing comes out of the water.  Kat is impressed by Annie’s conjuring until Annie says she didn’t do it.  They run out.

Only to learn that this is Lindsey–the creature who helped design most of everything at the court–a giant crablike creature.

All this time Kat has been working on the idea of growing a robot.  Well, not exactly, but kind of.  She imagines using a muscular frame to build a robot body around.  Or something.  She is able to use the smarts of one of the existing robots to give her a hand.  The code they provide is actually a small white cube with no writing on it.  Amazingly Kat is able to read parts of it. (more…)

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Jeremy Whitley & Emily Martin–Princeless: Volume Four: Be Yourself (2015)

Posted in Action Lab Comics, Dragons, Elves, Emily Martin, Failure, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Fears, Feminism, Funny (ha ha), Goblins, Graphic Novel, Grimmorax, Handsome Family, Jeremy Whitley, Monsters, Ongoing, Sexism, Shapeshifters, The Simpsons, Uncut, Vampires, Wilco, Wolves, YA Books, Zombies on February 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE HANDSOME FAMILY-“Capitol City” (from WILCOvered, UNCUT Magazine November 2019).

The November 2019 issue of UNCUT magazine had a cover story about Wilco.  It included a 17 track CD of bands covering Wilco (called WILcovered or WILCOvered).  I really enjoyed this collection and knew most of the artists on it already, so I’m going through the songs one at a time.

I’ve know of The Handsome Family for a long time, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard them before.  “Capitol City” is also a bit of a mystery.  It appeared on a Wilco bonus disc (for the deluxe edition of The Whole Love).  I assumed it had something to do with The Simpsons, but I guess it doesn’t.

This is a kind of honky-tonk version with banjo and “gadgets” as part of the lineup.   It’s fun with lots of weird sound effects swirling around this otherwise conventional song.

I wish you were here. Better yet, I wish I was there with you.

[READ: February 20, 2020] Princeless: Volume 4

Sir Gahiji the Hunter has learned that Adrienne is actually not dead and is in fact the knight they are all after.  He shares this information with the Black Knight. They instantly fight and the Black Knight knocks out Gahiji (or Cat Hat, since he wears a wolves’ head on his head).

Adrienne and Bedelia are headed for Grimmorium Swamp.  Bedelia tells of some horrible things that live there: flesh eating goblins, swamp creatures, electric fish, squirrels… real live squirrels! (The squirrel revelation is pretty great).

Back at the castle, the King grabs Devin and brings him along to the forest where the encounter the remains of the Queen’s carriage.   The King says he thinks the Black Knight is responsible.  The King then introduces Devin to the wolves (Kira scares the daylights out of him).

Amazingly Devin and Kira soon bond well enough.  The leader of the wolves says that he wishes his daughter were inquisitive like Devin. The King says he’d rather have Kira in battle–he’s seen rabbits with more courage than his son.  In the background we see Kira and Devin climbing all over his mother’s empty chest.  When he comes out he stands tall and says “I’m going on a quest to save my mother!” (more…)

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Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah–“Friday Black” (Esquire, November 2018)

Posted in Blood Orange, Consumerism, Devonté Hynes, Esquire, Funny (ha ha), Lightspeed Champion, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Yuck!, Zombies on January 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BLOOD ORANGE-Tiny Desk Concert #820 (January 29, 2019).

One night when I was going to a concert at the small club The Foundry, the main stage Fillmore had sold out for someone called Blood Orange, whom I’d never heard of.

And now he is at a Tiny Desk Concert.  From the name (and the popularity) I assumed it was an intense dance show.  I don’t know what Blood Orange normally sounds like but nothing could be further from loud dance music than this Concert.

Devonté Hynes is the main man behind Blood Orange.  He is “a groundbreaking producer and songwriter” and “a composer who fits as comfortably in the worlds of R&B, gospel and electronics as he does in the classical world of someone like Philip Glass.”

Blood Orange addresses

themes of identity, both sexual and racial, through the eyes of a black East Londoner (now living in New York).

For me the most powerful song was the first one, “By Ourselves.”  I don’t love the saxophone sound, but it’s the words that are so moving.

The opening song at the Tiny Desk, “By Ourselves,” features Dev Hynes on piano, Jason Arce on saxophone, Eva Tolkin and Ian Isiah on vocals along with a powerful spoken word performance by Ashlee Haze. Ashlee’s story is a tale of finding herself and her identity in the words and music of Missy Elliott when she was, in Ashlee’s own words, an eight-year old, “fat black girl from Chicago” who discovered “she could dance until she felt pretty” and “be a woman playing a man’s game.”

Her spoken word is amazing–moving, powerful and inclusive in many ways.  It will resonate, I hope.  And Hynes’ piano playing at the end is just lovely.

Ian sings the opening melody with a gorgeous falsetto.

“Jewelry,” the second song performed, welcomes Mikey Freedom Hart on piano while Dev moves on to electric guitar and vocals reminiscent of a languid Jimi Hendrix, with soul-baring lyrics of pride.

Hynes switches between spoken word (with his great deep, accented voice) and delicate singing.  Then the song shifts gears entirely as he starts playing a gentle echoed guitar.  I don’t hear Jimi Hendrix (maybe in his echoed guitar playing), I hear more of a Prince vibe.

The group then offers a rendition of “Holy Will,” inspired by the Detroit gospel group The Clark Sisters, as singer Ian Isiah takes this song of praise to a whole new level.

Introducing the song he says, “This song, my family Ian Isiah is gonna… tear the fuck up.  Can you swear on this?  You put the thing before hand that says explicit language, right?”  And Isiah does tear it the fuck up.  It’s a quiet song but Isiah’s voice (especially when paired with Eva Tolkin) is almost otherworldly.

For the final song, “Dagenham Dream” everyone but Ian and Eva leave.

Dev Hynes works an organ sound while singing about being beaten and bullied as a school kid in his hometown of Dagenham in east London.

I love the cool organ sounds and the way the seem to rise out of the deep darkness into a bright note of hope.

The power of each of these songs is magnified by the way Blood Orange has woven this performance together. He’s a rich, rare and caring talent we first met 11 years ago in a grassy field in Austin, Texas back when he still used the moniker Lightspeed Champion. Now his thoughts are deeper, his message of finding one’s place in this world more deep-seated, with a clarity few artists ever achieve.

[READ: November 2, 2018] “Friday Black”

I’m not sure how many Esquire issues have a short story in them.  I thought about going back to previous issues and seeing just how many stories there are over the course of 85 years.  But it’s a little hard to read their website when it comes to what’s actually fiction and what just talks about fiction.

So, I’ll be content with stories like this one, which I loved.

The story opens with ravenous humans howling at a gate.  The narrator explains that he is sitting on a cabin roof with an eight-foot metal pole.  He uses it to grab hangers off the highest racks and to smack down Friday heads.  For this is a zombie story about Black Friday.

(more…)

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Marcus Sedgewick, Thomas Taylor–Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter (2018)

Posted in Broken Social Scene, Cars, Children's Books, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Huh?, La Force, Live at Massey Hall, Marcus Sedgewick, Monsters, Thomas Taylor, Undercover Brother, Zombies on January 23, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LA FORCE-Live at Massey Hall (June 15, 2018).

I’d never heard of La Force.  Turns out La Force is Ariel Engle, vocalist and newest member of Broken Social Scene.  In her pre-show interview she says something that concludes with “life’s a bitch and then you die,” which didn’t bode well, but her sound is interesting (if maybe too much saxophone).

The show starts with “Upside Down Wolf.”  I love the weird square guitar she plays (and the cool sound that comes from it).  There’s also an acoustic guitar, sax and drums.  The drums from Evan Tighe are really dynamic with some great unexpected rhythms (and electronics).

The blurb describes “You Amaze Me” as infectious.  It’s a more dancey song with lots of drum-triggered sounds.  The sax from David French works pretty well here because it adds to the swells of music that are triggered by the drums.  And when the sax does add a solo, it;s a nice deep sax, which is a nice change of sound.

“Lucky One” opens slowly with a great guitar sound–a slow intro that is accented wonderfully by the acoustic guitar (there seems to be a cool echo on Warren Spicer’s sliding his hand up and down the strings).

“The Tide” swings faster.  Both guitarists add some cool sounds while the drums shuffle quickly.  Before the next song she explains she got the name La Force from a tarot card.  The La Force card had a picture of a woman opening a lion’s mouth and she loved the idea of the power that represented.

“Can’t Take” is a moody, slow piece, with some cool lead guitar from Spicer while Engle plays a very pretty minor key melody.

“TBT” opens with a simple two note guitar riff (that’s quite infectious) and a cool tribal drum beat.  The end of the song is a wonderful jam of the guitar, sax and drums totally rocking out.  It’s my favorite moment of the show and a great end.

[READ: January 20, 2019] Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter

I get the feeling that this book may have been initially intended for an older audience and then they brought it down to be more family friendly.  Or maybe it feels more like a pilot episode than a confident story.  It just didn’t feel natural.

I enjoyed a lot of the book, but it felt forced in places.  Especially because Scarlett says all kinds of exclamations that seem odd–Leaping Lizards! or Gaskets! or Piston Heads!  I mean, she’s not a car person, so why would she scream car epithets?

I also didn’t love the darkness of the story.  I realize times are bleak, but the art doesn’t have to be.

The premise is that Scarlett Hart is a monster hunter (duh).  But by law, she is too young to fight monsters (not sure how old she is or what the age of consent is, but she is younger than it).  This seems like a strange law, but many laws are strange.  She has help, though, from her butler Napoleon White and his wife.  They also helped her parents fight monsters.

But her parents were killed several years ago while on the job.  She can’t get revenge against the monsters that killed them but she can become the best monster hunter she can be. (more…)

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Greg Smith, Michael Tanner, Zach Lehner–Junior Braves of the Apocalypse: Book 1: A Brave is Brave

Posted in Adventure, Death, End of the World, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Greed, Greg Smith, Guns, Michael Tanner, Now, Now, Oni Press, Set at School, Supernatural, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfinished series, Violence, Yuck!, Zach Lerner, Zombies on November 21, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NOW, NOW-Tiny Desk Concert #672 (November 15, 2017).

I really enjoyed the Now, Now album Threads.  It had a synthpop feel but with some cool slightly darker elements that kept the listener guessing.  The blurb describes it like this: “Its songs carried in them a weary recognition of how desire and nostalgia linger in the body and mind.”

I had no idea that it was released five years ago.

So I was pleased to see them on the Tiny Desk Concert.

But in the intervening years, their sound has become more poppy with (at least in this recording) many of the darker elements smoothed over somewhat.

Now, Now took the Tiny Desk stage with a minimal setup (dig the sampler as drum kit) that laid the vocals bare, but still lent the songs a room-filling pulse. Among those songs were “SGL” and “Yours,” the two singles that heralded the band’s return this summer (a full five years after Threads, with a pared-down lineup and no album yet announced, though the rumors say next year).

I hadn’t heard those singles.  But they are poppy and KC Dalager’s voice has become much more breathy.  Bradley Hale’s synths are very bouncy and sort of 1970s-sci-fi documentary sounding.

Jeffrey Sundquist and Daniel O’Brien join them, but I’m not sure who does what.  The guitar is quiet and echoed, adding textures to the songs.

Before the final song, they thanks NPR for their support and then KC says, “This [Tiny Desk] is the one thing we’re doing that my mom was really excited about.”  The final song, “Separate Rooms” is from Threads.  It retains some of the feelings of the original, but the synths still have the newer bounciness which is a little disconcerting.  The original also has a lot more guitar in it.  I almost don’t recognize the song.

It’s hard to know how different these songs would sound with a big drum sound (it’s funny to see the drummer standing there with his hand behind his back the whole time).  But I definitely don’t enjoy them as much as the original.

[READ: May 2, 2017] Junior Braves of the Apocalypse: Book 1

I saw this book at the library and I was intrigued by the title.  And, seeing it was from Oni Presss, I knew it would be a good read.   And, boy was it ever.

Without trying to reduce the story too much, call it a male version of Lumberjanes but with a whole end-of-the-world, zombie vibe thrown on top.

The book begins on Day 1 as we see a gruff and, frankly, angry-looking dude waiting for someone.  Turns out he is Padre Ron,the adult leader of the Junior Braves.  And over the next few panels we meet the braves.  There’s Travis (a bossy, jerky kid) and his (dorky)brother Marvin.  There’s Lucas, who is mad that they don’t say prayers. There’s Johnny who is Native American living with a foster family.  He is sullen and quiet.  And then there’s Raj (whose mom is overly cautious and thus, so is he) and Amir, a rough kid who knows Krav Maga.   And then there’s Dylan.  Their other adult leader is a recent graduate named Buddy.

Padre Ron is, as I said, kind of jerk, telling the parents that their boys will go out as children and come back an men and blah blah blah.  Exactly the thing that would make me hate the Scouts if we did that now.

Then Padre lets Buddy know they are not going to the promised camp.  The are going to a very secluded spot that proves to be very cool indeed.  Everyone has a pretty good time (except maybe Johnny) for 7 days.  But as they head back home, something… everything is wrong. (more…)

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