A lot of Tiny Desk Concerts are by bands I don’t know (and then really like). Some are by bands I don’t like. And every once in a while they have one by a band I like a lot.
Pup is a hugely popular pop punk band from Canada. I’m bummed I didn’t get to see them when they played around here, but I wasn’t really aware of them at the time.
I have since come to enjoy their music quiet a lot.
“Rot” (from the group’s aptly-titled 2020 EP, This Place Sucks A** ) opens with some fast drumming from Zack Mykula, then Stefan Babcock starts singing and playing rhythm guitar. After the first verse, Steven Sladkowski adds higher harmony notes–a simple but cool effect. It’s not until the (outrageously catchy) chorus that Nestor Chumak adds the bass notes and, suddenly, the song feels huge. I really like that Babcock adds some noisy harmonics and mini feedbacks into the chaos.
The other fun thing is that everyone except Babcock is wearing a mask–even while signing backing vocals (it’s not hard to wear a mask, people). For a fast punk song, it’s actually quote long–over three minutes.
“My neighbors hate us, and I don’t blame them,” Babcock said. The Toronto group refused to dial down the volume, filling Babcock’s neatly-furnished living room – complete with an Ontario pennant – and just maybe making a few enemies down the street in the process.
“Kids” (From 2019’s Morbid Stuff) opens differently–bass and harmonics for the first verse, before the rest of the band crashes in. There’s even a harmonic-filled guitar solo. I like in the middle when it’s almost only drums and Mykula plays some cool rhythms on the floor tom.
Up next is “Reservoir,” a track off the group’s debut. It’s full on with lots o crash cymbal, and lots of fast playing from everyone during the chorus.
“Scorpion Hill” runs to almost seven minutes and has several parts. It opens quietly with just Babcock singing and playing. After the first verse the whole band joins in including backing vocals. But it’s still fairly quiet until after a pauses a n a misdirecting guitar strum, the song rockets off with lots of thumping drums and bass After a couple of lengthy section, there’s pause and then a simple riff during which everyone sings “ah ah ah oh.”
This was a wonderful set. And the even better news
the handmade “Ceci n’est pas une Tiny Desk” (“This is not a Tiny Desk”) sign serves as a warning: When the Tiny Desk returns to NPR HQ and the U.S.-Canada border reopens, prepare to have your workday interrupted.
[READ: February 1, 2021] “Comfort”
This story seemed rather different from Munro’s usual work.
It is about Nina and her husband Lewis. Lewis was a teacher at the high school left until he left under less than positive circumstances.
Nina met with Margaret (another former teacher who left on good terms) at the high school tennis courts. Nina had not set foot on high school grounds since Lewis had left
When she returned (victorious from her matches), she discovered that Lewis had taken his own life. They had talked about Lewis doing this, but Nina always thought she would be there–a ceremonial act of some sort. But clearly Lewis didn’t want her to see him do this. Continue Reading »
This haunting song is sung with minimal piano accompaniment. In between verses, the original version has some stark trumpet solos, although they are not present in this live version.
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin’ eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin’ flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather
For the wind to suck
For the sun to rot
For the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
She sings the words slowly (the song is 3 minutes long despite the relatively few words), letting the image linger in your mind as she stretched out “burning flesh” and “for the crows to pluck.” The way she agonizingly sings “drop” and “crop” really emphasizes the last lines.
The studio version has a haunting guitar line–the only guitar in the song–as a little coda. It’s a remarkable addition and really affecting.
I can’t imagine the courage it took to sing these words in 1959 let alone 1939.
This song has a fascinating origin.
Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were two Black men who were hanged in a spectacle lynching in 1930. A photograph was taken by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. He sold thousands of copies of the print [which is amazingly disturbing and I can’t imagine who would have bought them]. In 1937 Abel Meeropol, a Jewish school teacher from New York City saw a copy of Beitler’s 1930 photograph which “haunted [him] for days” and inspired his poem “Bitter Fruit” which was published in The New York Teacher in 1937 (under the pseudonym Lewis Allan). Meeropol then set his poem to music, renaming it “Strange Fruit” which Billie Holiday recorded in 1939.
[READ: March 8, 2021] Kindred [the fight]
This week took us to the end of the book.
Dana arrived home with Kevin this time. He’s initially happy to be home, but is soon very restless. He was in the past for five years. They have only been in their new house together a few days–noting is familiar here. He is agitated and irritable. He tells her about some of the horrible things he’s seen like a woman dying in childbirth. It’s interesting that this horror comes from Kevin telling Dana about a woman’s whose master beat her until the baby fell out of her.
I feel like Kevin is overreacting to his return–his agitation seems way too great. I realize that things are new in this house, but you’d think that even after five years, being home wouldn’t be such a bad thing. And then he tells a story like the above and while I still don’t understand why it’s not just a relief to be out of there, i can see that he’s got PTSD.
But he was jumpy–the sound of jet overhead freaked him out. Again, would five years without a jet overhead make you forget that they existed before hand?
Earlier Dana had been concerned that Kevin could be “won over” to the bad side. But he tells her that he had been helping slaves to escape. he even imagined that they might both want to go back to help more slaves escape–to do good historically speaking. Continue Reading »
I had not heard of Muzz before this set. They are a project of Interpol singer Paul Banks.
Paul Banks and Josh Kaufman have known each other since childhood. You likely know Paul Banks as the singer for Interpol; Josh Kaufman is a producer and one-third of Bonny Light Horseman. They are both friends with drummer Matt Barrick, who played a Tiny Desk concert in 2012 with his band The Walkmen.
The trio plays three songs from their self-titled debut album. I’m not sure what the record sounds like (Barnes suggests that at least one of the songs is more rocking), but this is a mellow gathering.
Josh Kaufman told me via email that “Paul was stuck in Glasgow and Matt and I were quarantining with families in Philadelphia and Brooklyn, respectively. At the very end of a long couple of days of rehearsal and taping, we — very late at night, Paul jet-lagged and the rest plain exhausted — stayed awake a little longer to try a campfire style strum along to some of the songs from our new LP. The result here is our Tiny Desk.”
All three of them are wearing masks and Barnes can sing no problem–people need to lighten up about the masks.
“Bad Feeling” has one guitar from Kaufman and quiet malleted drums as Banks sings. I don’t really hear Interpol in this at all, it’s much folkier
“Knuckleduster” is kind of a rock n roll song but they’re playing it rather quietly. It doesn’t sound any different in this format except the drums are heavier and there are some deeper chords.
Barnes picks up a guitar for “Trinidad” and plays the opening melody. Having the two guitars playing harmonies is really nice. The drums are just brushes rubbed on the heads. It has a very campfire feel.
As they prepare for the last song, Barrick brings his drum mic up front. It takes a moment or two (no edits, Banks jokes). “Summer Love” has a drum machine and Barrick playing a very quiet synth. It, too is a pretty, quiet song with a delicate solo from Kaufman.
[READ: March 10, 2021] “Family Furnishings”
One of the great things about Alice Munro stories is the way she fully fleshes out the characters. In this story, the plot (such as it is) is one thing, but Munro adds in so much detail about the characters–details that give you a fuller picture of them, but which don’t really have an impact directly on the plot–that you feel like you are fully a part of this world. We learn that the narrator was married twice an we learn a bunch about her first and second husbands. None of this has any direct bearing on the story, but these details give you the most complete picture of the narrator and helps to flesh out the decisions she makes.
This is the story of a young woman who grows up to become a writer and how her father’s cousin had an unexpectedly big impact on that career trajectory.
When the narrator was little her father’s cousin Alfrida (Freddy) was a dramatic and dynamic person. She worked for the newspaper and was part of the collective of writers who contributed to “Flora Simpson Housewives’ Pages” (there was no Flora Simpson, just a photo of a woman). She also wrote the “Round and About Town” column which allowed her to give her opinion on all things local.
She was appropriately full of herself but she was always a delight to have around. The rest of her family was quite dull and formal and the narrator felt like Alfrida loosened everyone up. Continue Reading »
I’m not a huge fan of Future Islands. I like some of their songs, and I think singer Sam Herring’s voice is really interesting. The biggest thing I remember about them is NPR’s fascination with singer Sam herring’s dancing. Herring does some dancing here, but saves most of it until the final song.
Future Islands’ four members are gathered not too far from their Baltimore base in Carroll Baldwin Memorial Hall, sans desk. “We lost the desk,” singer Sam Herring tells us with a smile. With drummer Michael Lowry on the tiny stage, the rest of the band — including bassist William Cashion and Gerrit Welmers on electronics — took to the floor, allowing Sam Herring to make his moves and sing his heart out. This music is clearly for the head and the feet.
The first three songs are from
their sixth and very recent album, As Long As You Are.
“Hit the Coast” is an upbeat song musically. The notable thing about Future Islands is that their music is primarily keyboard based, but there’s something about having a bassist that brings an organic element to the music.
Along with themes of loneliness and love, we also hear songs about race, which is most evident in “The Painter,” a song about how we can all look at the same thing and see it so differently.
He continues, “Art is subjective but they way we think about people and the way we treat human lives shouldn’t be.”
My favorite part of this very precise song comes mid-song when Cashion scratches up the strings a bit to add some chaotic distortion.
“Thrill” is set in Greenville NC on the banks of the great greasy Tar River. It’s about feeling isolated in your society, about self-isolating through substance abuse and about continuing to push forward as all the seething bubbles up inside of you like the great river. It is a slow and moody song and yo can tell that its very personal to Herring.
We end with a song that came out shortly after visiting NPR in 2011 [Oh man, I miss my hair] called “Balance.” It’s one of those tunes that feels repurposed for the 2020s: “This is a song for anybody who’s struggling through their lives,” Sam Herring says, “and I know there are a lot of you all out there, just trying to get by, but it’s going to take a little bit more time.”
This is a fun dance song–the kind of earlier, faster song that I like from them. Herring lets his dance shoes lose, with some impressive and wild moves.
[READ: March 1, 2021] Behemoth
Book two of this series was longer and more dangerous–as a sequel should be.
As this book opens, everyone is on board the Leviathan having just sailed to safety. Alek is showing Deryn how to fence. She is impatient and has no technical skill. But it’s nice for her to be with Alek (who Deryn has admitted to herself that she fancies) and it’s nicer that he is saying things like “we” when he talks about the Leviathan.
But soon they see some enemy ships. The ships look in bad shape and the Leviathan looks poised to destroy them. Until one of them fires up what they learn is a Tesla tower–a generator that can shoot lightning across great distances. No one has ever seen one before. But Alek’s men piece together what it is. Since they are the only ones who know how to fly Clanker engines, they are in charge of propulsion. And they disobey orders by bringing the ship to a halt. The Leviathan, being sentient, also senses what’s going on and starts to concur with the decision.
But disobeying orders is mutiny (except that Alek’s men aren’t technically part of the crew so they can’t be punished).
The Tesla cannon fires and grazes the Leviathan. It doesn’t puncture the ship (it could literally blow it up if it got to any of the hydrogen), but it does mess with everything electrical. It also leaves one of the men stranded on a Huxley–essentially electrocuted.
Deryn takes it into her hands to save her mate in an exciting an daring rescue. Continue Reading »
GlobalFEST is an annual event, held in New York City, in which bands from all over the world have an opportunity to showcase their music to an American audience. I’ve never been, and it sounds a little exhausting, but it also sounds really fun.
The Tiny Desk is teaming up with globalFEST this year for a thrilling virtual music festival: Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST. The online fest includes four nights of concerts featuring 16 bands from all over the world.
Given the pandemic’s challenges and the hardening of international borders, NPR Music and globalFEST is moving from the nightclub to your screen of choice and sharing this festival with the world. Each night, we’ll present four artists in intimate settings (often behind desks donning globes), and it’s all hosted by African superstar Angélique Kidjo, who performed at the inaugural edition of globalFEST in 2004.
The third artist of the fourth and final night is fifteen year old banjo player Nora Brown. Nora was born and bred in Brooklyn, but she has a huge affinity for Appalachian banjo music.
30 feet below the surface in Brooklyn, 10th grader Nora Brown brings incredible, surprising depth to the Appalachian music she plays. Over the course of her Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST concert, surrounded by innumerable globes and instruments, she infuses new life and energy into the traditional songs of Addie Graham, Virgil Anderson and Fred Cockerham. Nora weaves together songs and storytelling, speaking of the great history of the music that came before her and at which she excels.
Nor plays three songs. “The Very Day I’m Gone” is an Addie Graham song. Graham was a singer from eastern Kentucky. It is a slow piece that is primarily a bass riff with some high notes and very soft singing.
Her dad made the banjo she is playing. As the song ends you can hear the shuttle train that runs back and forth about every seven minutes.
Nora has her school stuff on her tiny desk, since she’s been doing remote school learning. And she’s a high school student which means she ends her sentences with, “So yeah”
“Miner’s Dream” is a Virgil Anderson tune. He is from the Kentucky/Tennessee border and brought a bluesy touch to his banjo playing. This one is a faster instrumental played on a snake head Gibson banjo, the bowl of which is over 100 years old.
“Little Satchel” is by Fred Cockerham. The banjo she is playing is from John Cohen’s of the New Lost City Ramblers. Roscoe Halcomb would use it when touring with John. John recently passed away and the banjo is on its way to the Library of Congress. The song has fast playing with a cool lyrical melody. It’s my favorite of the three.
[READ: February 10, 2021] 5 Worlds Book 4
I had actually forgotten about this series, and was quite happy to see this book at the library. This is book 4 of 5 (5 due out in May).
The book does a nice job of bringing us back up to speed in the first few pages–reintroducing everyone and reminding us what is going on.
Of all the books, this one was the most straightforward. There’s not a lot of travels and we understand most of what’s going on by now.
Oona, Jax, An Tzu and Ram Sam Sam land on planet Ambrine in the town of Salassanra (where Ram Sam Sam is from). They receive a mixed welcome. Since they have lit 3 beacons things have not been great on all the worlds. (The task is not completed, and the process is a little rocky). Oona is met with some hostility although the planet people love her (she brought water to them after all).
But this task (to light the fourth (amber) beacon) seems pretty easy. The beacon is in a pyramid. It’s right in front of them and they meet little resistance. As Oona begins to dance she realizes this beacon is encrusted in indestructible amber. She can’t break it, but old runes pop up and most likely lead to a clue. Continue Reading »
SOUNDTRACK: MAX RICHTER-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #150 (January 22, 2021).
I really enjoyed Max Richter’s Tiny Desk Concert back in January of last year. The pieces were pretty and sad and had a modern classical feel.
For his Home Concert, he seems to be one of the few people who actually plays in his home.
Shot in artful black and white, their simplicity and beauty invite us into a world as we once knew it, where fresh air wafts through open doors and dogs peacefully snooze (canine cameos by Evie and Haku) in the late summer sunshine in southern England.
These half-dozen short pieces can offer two very different modes of experience. There’s a mysterious potency in instrumental music, where the mind is open to wander and free-associate. Max Richter taps into that power with singular grace and humanity.
His entire set is 16 minutes, so indeed all of these pieces are quite short.
He played “Vladimir’s Blues” when he was at the Tiny Desk. There’s no blurb about it here, but the first time, the blurb told us
Its delicately toggling chords are an homage to novelist Vladimir Nabokov who, in his spare time, was a respected lepidopterist, obsessed with a subfamily of gossamer-winged butterflies called the blues. Richter plays the piano with the practice pedal engaged for a warm, muted sound.
It’s a 2004 piece that’s only a minute and a half and it is quite lovely.
Up next are the
gently swaying chords of “Origins,” where the music lumbers in the lower half of the keyboard.
It reminds me a lot of a famous piano piece which I can’t quite remember the name of. After about three minutes of the piece, one of the dogs who had been lying outside gets up and walks almost up to the camera.
Infra is a ballet he made with Wayne MacGregor for the Royal ballet in London in 2008.
He plays the “soothing, oscillating figures” of “Infra 3” and follows it with the mellow but more upbeat “Horizon Variations.” This piece also lasts less than two minutes as well. It’s lovely.
“Prelude 6” from Voices which has a much faster melody than the other pieces. About half way through, the other dog (who looks like a puppy) comes in all tail-wagging and heads over to dog number 1 (both off camera now).
“Fragment” is a pretty, sad piece to end the set (also about a minute in a half). As he signs off he says
“Looking forward to the time when gigs can come back and we can do this for real,”
As the video ends, both dogs get up and walk into the lovely sunshine.
[READ: March 1, 2021] Klawde: Evil Alien Cat
I saw this book at the library (actually I saw book 5, I think) and thought it sounded funny. They had book one so I decided to start from the beginning.
The title says it (almost) all. Klawde is an evil alien warlord cat. The book opens on the planet Lyttyrboks where Klawde (whose Lyttyrboks name is Wyss-Kuzz) is on trial. He is found guilty of clawing his way to power and committing crimes against felinity.
The elder says that thousands of years ago the punishment’s on Lyttyrboks was banishment to a vast wasteland of a planet inhabited by a race of carnivorous ogres. For generations they sent their convicts there, but eventually that punishment was deemed to cruel. However, given the severity of Wyss-Kuzz’s crimes, they have resurrected this punishment. He is transported across the galaxy to the horrible planet known as Earth.
Alternating chapters are written from the point of view of Klawde’s and an earth boy named Raj. Raj’s family recently moved from Brooklyn to Elba, Oregon and he is bored and alone. So when a spaceship lands in front of his house and the doorbell rings… well how exciting to find a cat without a tag. Even if this cat meows like nothing he’s ever heard before and seems kind of mean.
The book is full of illustrations by Chenoweth. I love the wickedness of Klawde and Raj’s parents are a hoot as well.
Klawde sees the humans as furless ogres and fears what they will do to him. They put him in a cage (kitty carrier) and force him to eat horrible food–what is this torture? Raj’s dad names him: “like clawed, but spelled in a more exciting way. Why use a C when you could use a K? K is the alphabet’s party letter.” Continue Reading »
SOUNDTRACK: GABRIEL GARZÓN-MONTANO-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #147 (January 19, 2021).
Gabriel Garzón-Montano did a solo Tiny Desk Concert a few years ago, as the blurb quickly points out
If Gabriel Garzón-Montano’s solo Tiny Desk back in 2017 was an exercise in restraint and vulnerability, his home set is the polar opposite. It beams ingenuity and unveils multiple layers, figuratively and literally. In this performance he brought the full band, sporting all white from mask to toe and bringing to life all the sonics we hear on the record, last year’s genre-snubbing Agüita.
They play three songs.
Garzón-Montano morphs into three different characters from Agüita and stretches the boundaries even more, adding salsa flavor to “Muñeca” and delivering some bonus bars on the set opener, “With A Smile.”
“With A Smile” opens with just his face surrounded by flowers as he plays a pretty acoustic guitar. The flowers move away as the Gracie Sprout’s harp adds more pretty notes. As the song moves along with Gabriel’s soft and sexy voice, Itai Shapira’s bass and Lenny “The Ox”‘s drums come thumping in.
Like the rest of his band, Gabriel is in all white, including white Uggs and a long white coat with tails. The only color is from the sweater underneath.
At the end of the song he raps in Spanish, which has a really nice flow.
Taking advantage of of the rare opportunity to gather musicians in quarantine times, he says “It’s like being a child who’s allowed to do what they always wanted to do when they didn’t wanna get up for school, and it’s also felt like an adult who didn’t know what to do at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. I’m focusing on oscillating between those states with ease.”
For “Muñeca” he takes off the big coat and shows off the colorful sweater which has a fascinating cut, including tails. For this song, it’s a trio of bass and Daniel Rodriguez on drums. Rodriguez plays a funky middle with conga and cowbell as Gabriel gets up and dances. He picks up the guitar again at the end of the song for a little strumming outro.
Before the final song, Gabriel moves to the piano. He takes off the colorful sweater to reveal a sleeveless shirt underneath (which shows off his tattoos).
“Tombs” features the KROMA Quartet and everyone else on synths. Nicholas Semrad plays the lead, but everyone else adds melody. It’s a delicate song with an interesting and slightly creepy synth melody. About half way through this six minute song he gets up and picks up an electric guitar. He and Justin “Jhawk” Hawkins play a harmony solo together, which sounds pretty cool.
I am quite intrigued by this singer, and I love the description of genre-snubbing.
[READ: February 28, 2021] Pops
I have often said I wanted to read more books by Michael Chabon. And after finishing this I realized that the only novel by him that I’ve read is Kavalier and Clay and that was 21 years ago. So maybe it’s time to get into some of these other books.
Pops is a collection of (very) short essays. Most were written for Details Magazine (which folded in 2015), one for GQ and a final one I’d already read in the New Yorker.
“Introduction: The Opposite of Writing”
It’s not too often that you really enjoy an introduction, but this one was pretty great. In it, Chabon talks about when he was an up and coming writer and he met a well-established Southern writer. This writer told him that the secret to being a good writer was not having children. That for every child you have, you will lose one book.
Chabon had no children with his first wife but has had four with his second wife (the writer Ayelet Waldman). So clearly they have lost eight books between them.
The writer’s argument was that children take away time from novel writing and that novel writing takes away time from children. Chabon had always felt that his father was not very present (as one of the essays says) and he promised to be much more involved in his children’s lives). These essays suggest that he was. So how did he find time to write? He does not say. Continue Reading »
As the biography below states, Cecil Taylor was ahead of his time and harshly criticized for being so. This was his first album and it made waves–as did his subsequent performance at Newport Jazz Festival (it’s like when Dylan went electric, but for jazz).
Since I’m not a big jazz follower, I’ll start with those who are. Here’s some notes on the album from The Guardian.
A Taylor group comprised of Buell Neidlinger on bass and Dennis Charles on drums is augmented here and there by soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy; the repertoire mixes tunes by Ellington, Monk and Cole Porter with the leader’s fearlessly personal reinventions of the blues. Thelonious Monk’s “Bemsha Swing” is played even more cryptically and succinctly, the lines breaking up into jagged fragments and jutting chords. Taylor’s “Charge Em Blues” is a 4/4 walk with a surprisingly straight Lacy sax solo, and “Azure”‘s lazily struck chords and delicate treble sounds might even remind you of Abdullah Ibrahim, until the cross-rhythmic improvised piano patterns clattering chords typical of later Taylor emerge. … It’s a historic document that still sounds more contemporary than most jazz piano music being made today.
As I listened I first thought it didn’t sound all that shocking and I wondered if that was because I was listening in 2021 and not 1956, but around two minutes into “Bemsha Swing” he starts throwing in some atonal and dissonant notes. You can tell that he knows how to play, but that he’s deliberately hitting either “wrong” notes or just letting his fingers fly where they will. And it still sounds surprising today.
“Charge ‘Em Blues” sounds far more “normal” at least in the beginning. Lacy’s sax solo is fun and bouncy. Then around 5 minutes a back and forth starts with Taylor’s wild free-jazz atonal improv and a drum solo.
“Azure” is a more chill track although about halfway through the improv starts going off the rails.
About half way through “Song” the solo is all over the place–sprinkling around the piano and pounding out a few chords here and there. It’s dissonant and off-putting, but seem more like it’s trying to wake up the listener. When Lacy’s pretty sax comes in and plays a delightful improv and Taylor is bopping around behind him, the contrast is stark.
“You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To” is the only song on the record that I knew before and I never would have recognized it here. As AllMusic puts it
At his most astonishing, Taylor slightly teases, barely referring to the melody of “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” wrapping his playful, wild fingers and chordal head around a completely reworked, fractured, and indistinguishable yet introspective version of this well-worn song form.
This is a solo piece and he is all over the place. At no point did I recognize the original melody.
“Rick Kick Shaw” features some lively drums and walking bass while Taylor goes to town. He plays some really fast runs which slowly turn experimental. I’m very curious if future renditions of this song were in any way the same or if all of this soloing was improvised each time.
“Sweet and Lovely” is very slow and more traditional sounding. Without the speed of his solos, this song comes across as almost like a standard jazz song. Although at the very end he throws in a few sprinkles of chaos just because he can.
[READ: February 2, 2021] The Musical Brain
I’d only read a couple of short stories from César Aira (all included here). His novels are so short it almost seems weird that he’d write short stories, but some of these stories are very short indeed. They do also tend to meander in the way his novels do which makes it seem like some of them don’t end so much as stop.
“The Musical Brain” was the first story I’d read by Aira, and what I wrote about the story has held true for pretty much everything I’ve read by him:
There are so many wonderful and unexpected aspects to this story that I was constantly kept on my toes. This also made it somewhat challenging to write about.
“A Brick Wall”
I thought I had read this story before but I guess I hadn’t. It begins with the narrator saying that he went to the movies a lot as a kid–four or six films a week (double features). He says he has an impressive memory for details. He remembers seeing Village of the Damned decades ago. A small village’s children are all born as zombies. The zombies can read everyone’s minds so the hero thinks–erect a brick wall. He also remembers North By Northwest which was titled in Argentina: International Intrigue. He and his friend Miguel loved the elegance of the movie. And they decided to become spies. So they created a game in which they would “forget” that they were spies. They would leave notes for each other and then “discover” them so that when they came upon them they were new and exciting. It was surprisingly easy to forget the game, apparently. Continue Reading »
[POSTPONED: March 8, 2021] Acid Mothers Temple / ST 37 [rescheduled from May 3, 2020]
I had just checked to see the status of this show and the following day it was announced that their tour was cancelled. Not surprising of course, but still sad.
A message from the artist
Acid Mothers Temple’s upcoming US tour dates that were set to take place in February – March have unfortunately been cancelled due to COVID19. Refunds will be available at your point of purchase. We do look forward to having them back out in North America once the pandemic has settled down and it’s safe to do so.
I have seen Japanese psych rockers Acid Mothers Temple twice and each show was a whirlwind of fun and insanity.
I promised myself I would see them any time they came to town. So I was very excited to see them again. Continue Reading »
SOUNDTRACK: NINA SIMONE-“Mississippi Goddamn” (Live in Antibes, July 24-25, 1965).
This song is amazing for so many reasons.
Nina Simone wrote this song in less than an hour as a response to the murders of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers in Mississippi, and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama (see the posts from John Lewis’ March).
It is simple and straightforward. She pulls no punches, from the title to the explicitness of the lyrics.
The intro (and chorus) get right to the point
Alabama’s gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi, goddamn
She doesn’t stop there.
Don’t tell me, I’ll tell you
Me and my people just about due
I’ve been there so I know
They keep on saying
“Go slow!”
But that’s just the trouble “too slow”
Washing the windows “Too slow”
Picking the cotton “Too slow”
You’re just plain rotten “Too slow”
You’re too damn lazy “Too slow”
The thinking’s crazy “Too slow”
Where am I going What am I doing I don’t know
Having the band chant back “too slow” during the bridge is a nice call for support.
What’s most scary about this song is how little has changed since she wrote it fifty years ago,
Picket lines, school boycotts
They try to say it’s a communist plot [substitute Antifa or BLM now]
All I want is equality
For my sister, my brother, my people, and me
In the Antibes version, she substitutes Governor Wallace in one of the lines–and you can tell how intensely she feels these words.
Then there’s the music–a sort of bouncy jazzy number that could easily be about anything. The lyrics are straightforward, but the music almost softens the bite, or at least. In the Carnegie Hall recording she even jokes “This is a show tune, but the show hasn’t been written for it, yet.”
The middle section, which is a little quieter, definitely sounds a bit more sinister. And justifiably
Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day’s gonna be my last
Watching this video is really intense. I wonder how impactful this was in France. And I can’t imagine what the impact was like at Carnegie Hall.
[READ: March 8, 2021] Kindred [the fight]
This week’s read is one long, painful chapter.
After the first few sections have established the scenario, the more you think about it, the more you realize how many things can (and likely will) go wrong for Dana.
Each time Dana is sent back in time, the gap between instances grows. Time doesn’t pass in the present the same way it does when she goes back. She had been gone for nearly two months but when she returned home she had been “gone” for less than a day.
Now that Kevin has remained, she fears for him as well and those fears are completely reasonable–he was treated well in that world because he was white. He looked forward to watching the expansion of our country West. Could he become a hardened white person if he was there for too long? Kevin seems like a pretty decent fellow and doesn’t seem like he would become an owner of anyone, but you could see him getting caught up in everything that’s happening. Continue Reading »
SOUNDTRACK: PUP-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #149 (January 21, 2021).
A lot of Tiny Desk Concerts are by bands I don’t know (and then really like). Some are by bands I don’t like. And every once in a while they have one by a band I like a lot.
GlobalFEST is an annual event, held in New York City, in which bands from all over the world have an opportunity to showcase their music to an American audience. I’ve never been, and it sounds a little exhausting, but it also sounds really fun.
I had just checked to see the status of this show and the following day it was announced that their tour was cancelled. Not surprising of course, but still sad.
I Just Read About That... 