February 17, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: THE REDNECK MANIFESTO-The How (2018).
Despite a terrible name that would keep me away from wanting to see them, The Redneck Manifesto are a very interesting and complicated band. I discovered them through the book of Irish drummers. TRM drummer Mervyn Craig is in the book.
The How is the band’s fifth album (and first in eight years). The album is chock full of instrumentals that touch all genres of music.
There are jazzy elements, dancey elements and rock elements. There are solos (but never long solos) and jamming sections. Most of the songs are around 4 minutes long with a couple running a little longer.
“Djin Chin” has jangly chords and quiet riffs that switch to a muted melody. All the while the bass is loping around. It shifts tempos three times in the first two minutes. Around three minutes the bass takes over the lead instrument pushing the song along with deep notes.
“The Rainbow Men” has a circular kind of riff with swirling effects that launch the song during the musical pauses. After a minute and a half it drastically shifts direction and the adds in a cool solo.
“Sip Don’t Gulp” starts with a catchy bouncy guitar riff and bass lines. At two minutes it too shifts gears to a staggered riff that sounds great.
“Kobo” is the shortest song and seems to tell a melodic story. The two guitars play short, fast rhythms as call and response while the bass rumbles along.
“Head Full of Gold” is over 6 minutes with a thumping bass, rumbling drums and soft synths. “No One” is nearly 7 minutes and feels conventionally catchy until you try to keep up with the beats. After a middle series of washes from various instruments, the back half is a synthy almost dancey rhythm.
“Sweep” is a pretty song until the half-way mark when it just takes off in a fury of fast drumming and complex chords. The end builds in upward riding notes until it hits a calming ending
“We Pigment” is a poppy staccato dancey number. The second half turns martial with a series of four beat drum patterns and a soaring guitar solo. More staccato runs through to the end. “The Underneath Sun” also has a lot of staccato–fast guitar notes interspersed with bigger chords. The end of the song is just littered with sweeping guitar slides until the thumping conclusion.
This album is great and I’m looking forward to exploring their other releases.
[READ: January 10, 2021] A History of Ireland in 100 Words
This book looks at old Irish words–how they’ve evolved and how they show the way Irish history came about. The authors say:
our store of words says something fundamental about us and how we think. This book is meant to provide insights into moments of life that may be otherwise absent from history books. The focus is on Gaelic Ireland throughout as Gaelic was the native language of the majority of the inhabitants of the island for the last 2000 years. It yielded its primacy to English only in the last 150 years.
We selected words with the aim of illustrating each of our themes as broadly as possible. We wanted the words in all their richness to tell their story … like how the word that originally meant noble came to mean cheaper (saor).
Almost all of the entries reference The cattle raid of Cooley (The Ulster Cycle) which features the hero Cú Chulainn. This story is at the heart of most of historical Ireland and it’s pretty fascinating how many of these Gaelic words either originate with that story or get their foundation from the story.
There’s a general pronunciation guide although I wish each word had a phonetic guide because anyone who speaks English will look at Irish a if it is just a jumble of nonsensical consonants.
The book is broken down into sections, although the authors insist that there is no correct way to read the book.
- Writing and Literature
- Technology and Science
- Food and Feasting
- The Body
- Social Circles
- Other Worlds
- War and Politics
- A Sense of Place
- Coming and Going
- Health and Happiness
- Trade and Status
- Entertainment and Sport
- The Last Word
There are also delightfully weird wood carving-like drawings from by Joe McLaren scattered throughout the book.
The words are listed below with either a definition or an interesting anecdote included. Continue Reading »
Posted in Accents, Adventure, Airlines, Animals, Curses, Death, Demons, Dictionary, Dip-in Books, Disease, Drinking, Fables, Fairies, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Farming, Festivals, Food, Gaeilge, Gods, Gregory Toner, History, Hurling, Ireland, Irish Writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joe McLaren, Language, Law, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Monsters, Morality, Myths, Poetry, Poets, Politicians, Pranks, Sharon Arbuthnot, Sports, Superstitions, Taxes, Turkeys, Violence, War | Leave a Comment »
February 16, 2021 by Paul Debraski
[CANCELLED: February 16, 2021] Holy Fuck (rescheduled from June 10, 2020]
Not only did Holy Fuck cancel this tour, Boot & Saddle closed its doors. Mega cancelled.
~~~
After seeing that this show was postponed, it gave me an opportunity to explore their music. I was now looking forward to seeing them in the new year. Well, I guess February is still too soon to plan anything, so this tour has also been cancelled.
Holy Fuck have a great name that pretty much guarantees they won’t get much in the way of airplay or advertising.
Of course their music isn’t super commercial either–although it can be quite catchy (and has been used in a bunch of soundtracks). They play an electronic dance music but in a decidedly old-school fashion. They don’t use laptops at all, employing all manner of old school equipment. Continue Reading »
Posted in Boot & Saddle, Cancelled, Coronavirus, Holy Fuck, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine | Leave a Comment »
February 16, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: MY LITTLE FUNHOUSE-Standunder (1991).
Drummer has a funny story about joining My Little Funhouse. It’s especially funny given how young he was and how raunchy the band seems.
This album feels like a hair metal band whose second guitarist had just heard of grunge. Lead singer Alan Lawlor sounds bratty and sleazy like an L.A. hair metal stud.
There’s some ripping guitar solos (“Destiny”) and big soaring ballads (“Wishing Well”) and there’s a dumb straight up rocker (“L.S.D.”). There’s even the quiet intro (lighters up in the air) “sensitive” song (“breaks my heart/tears me apart”), “Anonymous.”
The one musical surprise is the summer guitar intro of “Been too Long” which sounds like it belongs to another song all together. Although the bass/drum clap along is pretty apt. “raintown” is another song that is a little unusual here–it feels like a B-side. Lawlor’s vocals are toned way down and the production is much softer.
Perhaps the one thing that sets them apart from the West Coast metal is the song “Catholic Boy.” Yup, it’s just as sexual/ist as a typical metal band, but the specificity of being Catholic seems very Irish to me.
My Little Funhouse opened for Guns N’ Roses when they toured Ireland. And that makes perfect sense. This album is completely of its time (or maybe a year too late). With the right exposure, they would have been huge. But this is the only thing they released before they broke up.
[READ: December 30, 2020] Irish Drummers Volume 1
I received this book at work and thought it would be interesting to look though. I flipped through the names in the contents and was pretty sure I hadn’t heard of any of these drummers. But it turns out I knew a lot of the bands they played in, just not their names.
Gilligan says that he created the website Irish Drummers several years ago. It was an opportunity for him to interview Irish drummers and celebrate them. Gilligan himself is a drummer but never really played with any bands. Probably the most famous Irish drummer, U2’s Larry Mullen, Jr is not in this book, but he is on the website.
Gilligan thought it would be very cool to publish a book and here it is. The interviews are truncated for the book, you’ll get a lot more online.
Each interview has a picture (or two) and three to seven questions.
I have made some notes of interest from the drummers who had something unique to say. Continue Reading »
Posted in 1990, An Emotional Fish, Bad Brains, Bitch Falcon, Blades Club, Cactus World News, Cro-Mags, Cypress, Dave Grohl, Deep Purple, Dream Theater, Fangclub, Fontaines D.C., Frank Zappa, Gemma Hayes, Glen Hansard, Glenn Kotche, Green Day, Guns n' Roses, Hothouse Flowers, Marianne Faithfull, Metronomy, Midnight Oil, Montauk Hotel, My Little Funhouse, Neil Peart, Overhead The Albatross, Picturehouse, Pillow Queens, Pugwash, Queens of the Stone Age, Sepultura, Sinéad O'Connor, Snarky Puppy, Snow Patrol, Soccer Mommy, Stella Mozgawa, Sultans of Ping, The Commitments, The Coronas, The Frames, The Redneck Manifesto, The Who, Therapy?, Thin Lizzy, THUMPER, Tim Finn, Touts, Unsane, Vulpynes, Walking on Cars, Warpaint, Wilco | Leave a Comment »
February 15, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: BORIS with MERZBOW-Gensho (Disc One: Boris) (2016).
In 2016, Boris teamed with Merzbow to create Gensho, a 2 CD package that was designed to have both CDs played at the same time. Not the easiest thing for many people, but with the advent of digital recordings it’s now pretty easy to play both discs at the same time (this release is on Spotify).
Disc 1 was all Boris. Disc 2 was all Merzbow.
When you play them together, you get the drumless Boris with all of the glitching electronica of Merzbow sprinkled around it. The songs are set up in a very clever way with one of Merzbow’s songs being exactly equal to two or three of the Boris songs.
I played the CD of Boris and the stream of Merzbow on Spotify. It was cool to be able to raise and lower the volunme of one to change the intensity of Merzbow’s glitches.
Merzbow’s “Planet of the Cows” plays over the first two Boris songs “Farewell” and “Huge.” Farewell’s quiet drone tacks on Merzbow’s squeals and glitches which fill in the gaps quite nicely. When “Farewell” ends, the Merzbow continues until the loud gongs heavy chords of “Huge” ring out. The Merzbow chaos sounds almost like a solo over the slow low heavy drone chords. Atsuo’s low growling even complements the spare noises. Both parts ends with squealing feedbacking sounds–analog from Boris and digital from Merzbow.
Merzbow’s “Goloka Pt. 1” plays over three Boris songs “Resonance” “Rainbow” and “Sometimes” (the My Bloody Valentine cover). “Resonance” is mostly percussion–kind of randomly hit in a slow rhythm. Merzbow’s noises sound like static in a distance echoing signal from outer space. “Rainbow” is a piece I don’t know. This version features Boris playing some quiet guitar and a grooving bass with Wata singing vocals. Merzbow’s electronics sounds restrained here, adding louder noises when the vocals back out This song has some tasty soloing from Wata with the electronics almost keeping pace. It segues into “Sometimes,” with its loud thumping echoes and eventual wall of noise. The vocals are pretty well buried but you can hear the melody of the MBV song.
“Goloka Pt.. 2” plays over “Heavy Rain” and “Akuma No Uta.” “Heavy Rain” starts out with noisy stabs of sound–it’s actually hard to tell who is making what, but then things mellow out as Wata sings. The guitars drone loudly and the vocals mix in with the electronics. It ends with the noisy guitar buzzing from Boris while the noises from Merzbow continue between songs–sounds of noise and electronic bleeps. “Akuma No Uta” starts slowly with washes of guitar build up. The glitching Merzbow adds keeps it from being purely a drone. The drone gets louder and louder and I like the way Merzbow’s glitches seem to back off as the man riff enters the song. As it nears the end, glitching sounds to me like a menacing voice coming through the static and heavy riffage.
The final song is Merzbow’ “Prelude to a Broken Arm” which plays over “Akirame Flower” and “Vomitself.” It starts out with watery sounds before the big chords and vocals kick in. Merzbow’s noise is like a screaming train underneath the slow crooning. The main riff from Wata has some electronic percussive sounds tacked onto it. As the final chord rings out the song segues into the musch noisier “Vomitself.” It introduces a huge wave of low chords as Merzbow’s noise amps up to correspond with a lot of low growling percussive sounds. As the song rumbles to an end the squealing intensifies like feedback added on top of the roar with the last notes sounding like a person raging.
It’s interesting how I don’t really like the Merzbow tracks, but how they add interesting textures to the Boris songs.
[READ: February 19, 2021] Caliente
Matu Santamaria is an Argentinian illustrator and his work is really stunning.
This book has a big warning: 18+ but it’s not fully explicit. There are drawing of naked women and sex acts, but there’s only a few things that are NSFW.
Santamaria’s work is full of clean lines and and dramatic colors. I really enjoy looking at it, regardless of the content.
This book contains a lot of his most recent work. It seems to be split between positive messages about sexuality, body positivity and appreciation for frontline workers during the Coronavirus. There’s also some celebrity pictures as well.
After some definitions of the word caliente, the book opens with series of pictures of women exploring the sexuality with each other. Interracial women kissing and a woman taking her top off with the comment–“and without realizing it, it’s poetry.” Continue Reading »
Posted in Bad Bunny, Bag Gyal, Billie Eilish, Boris, Bunbury, Catalan, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi, Chita, Coronavirus, Dua Lipa, Feminism, Hayley Kiyoko, LGBTQ, Matu Santamaria, Merzbow, Puerto Rico, Rayden, Residente, Rexler, Rosalia Cazzu, Sex, Sexism, Spain, Uruguay | Leave a Comment »
February 14, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: BORIS with MERZBOW-Gensho (Disc Two: Merzbow) (2016).
In 2016, Boris teamed with Merzbow to create Gensho, a 2 CD package that was designed to have both CDs played at the same time. Not the easiest thing for many people, but with the advent of digital recordings it’s now pretty easy to play both discs at the same time (this release is on Spotify).
Disc 1 was all Boris. Disc 2 was all Merzbow.
Merzbow is a real challenge for me. I’m not really sure how anyone can listen to his music for pleasure. It’s harsh, electronic sounds, with high pitched squeals and low staticy distortions. As an exercise in noise, it’s fairly interesting, but never enjoyable.
This disc includes four songs.
“Planet of the Cows” is over 18 minutes long. It’s high pitched squealing and a low distortion. There’s a thumping that works almost like a rhythm. After ten minutes it sounds like a space alarm is sounding.
“Goloka Pt. 1” is 20 minutes long. It feels bigger and more metallic. The noises seem to coalesce into a distant screaming sound.
“Goloka Pt. 2” is 19:30. It’s got a slightly lower tone, with slower movement among the noises. Although sirens and pulsing sounds are present. Then at 12 minutes all the sirens drop out to just a quiet robotic pulsing with thumping that sound like a heartbeat. The track ends in what sounds like mechanical breathing.
“Prelude to a Broken Arm” is the shortest song at only 16 minutes. It is quieter with a low crunching and bug-like sounds. At 6 and half minutes the distortion comes in really loud with a mechanical drum/broken engine sound and then a looping siren with the kind of static noise that sounds like more screaming.
It is an unsettling and challenging listen and not for the squeamish.
[READ: February 10, 2021] “Our House”
Irish writers are often known for their humorous storytelling. But wow, can Irish writers really hit hard with the tragedy, too.
This is one of the darkest stories I’ve read in a long time.
The story begins with the narrator saying that his father always told him to never buy a house on a corner. But the narrator and his wife did anyway. It was in bad shape and needed a lot of work, but they fell in love with the place and felt they were up to the task.
The story sets up the spouses as opposites in love. She is a non-practicing Protestant with a Catholic name (Ursula) and he is a non-practicing Catholic with a Protestant name. She thinks he is funny and he never dares to admit that she rarely gets the jokes.
The previous owner died three years ago and they are the first people to check out the place. The more they clean the more work they see needs to get done. Although there are some nice surprises (like the five hundred pounds in cash they find under the carpet).
But it’s the neighborhood that proves to be more hostile to them than they could ever have imagined. Children began gathering at the corner every day. They get up to mischief right away–ringing the doorbell and running, bouncing a ball off the house. But there is an underlying air of menace behind all of this. Continue Reading »
Posted in Book Club, Boris, Cormac McCarthy, Irish Writer, Marriage Trouble, Martin Roper, Merzbow, New Yorker, Short Story, Violence | Leave a Comment »
February 13, 2021 by Paul Debraski
[POSTPONED: February 13, 2021] Fuzz [rescheduled from June 27, 2020; moved to April 11, 2022]
Postponing shows for a second or third time is certainly depressing. But it’s also a sign of hope. The belief that there will be live music again. Even if it’s a year away. This show has been moved to April 11 of next year and I just bought a ticket to make sure the venue knows I’m coming.
Ty Segall is one of the more prolific musicians out there. He has released 12 official albums in ten years and that doesn’t include the countless self-released material he has put out. He is also in a bunch of other bands. Fuzz is one of them.
I can’t believe that there wasn’t a band named Fuzz before Ty Segall and Charles Moothart came up with the band.
Segall makes all kinds of music, but the music of Fuzz is pretty easy to categorize–fuzzy, heavy, fast rock with a debt to early Black Sabbath. Segall is on drums for this project.
They have only released two albums since 2013, with Fuzz II coming out five years ago. But it was a big album with a 13 minute jam at the end.
I’ve often thought about seeing Ty Segall–he seems like a bonkers performer–but it never worked out. He can’t be quite as crazy behind the drums, but this sounds like a great show.
Posted in Coronavirus, Fuzz, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, Ty Segall, Underground Arts | Leave a Comment »
February 13, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: BORIS with MERZBOW-Gensho (Disc One: Boris) (2016).
In 2016, Boris teamed with Merzbow to create Gensho, a 2 CD package that was designed to have both CDs played at the same time. Not the easiest thing for many people, but with the advent of digital recordings it’s now pretty easy to play both discs at the same time (this release is on Spotify).
Disc 1 was all Boris. Disc 2 was all Merzbow.
Boris’ album is unusual in that it is re-recordings of some of the bands music as well as a couple of new tracks and a cover. The unusual part is that there are no drums. There are percussive elements, especially on one track, but there’s no regular drum beat to any of these tracks.
“Farewell” (from Pink) is a simple two note guitar melody with washes of sound behind it. New notes expand that repeating motif. After two minutes a roaring chord comes in and holds while the vocals sing an uplifting melody. The chord progression is very very slow with chords that drone. When the melody shifts to a higher note it feels like the whole song is elevated. There’s a pretty little guitar solo in the middle and even a gong hit. It’s one of Boris’ prettier songs and it fades softly into the noise that is “Huge.”
“Huge” (from Amplifier Worship) is two feedbacking guitars introducing distorted chords and lots of gong hits. They’re followed by a ponderous drone-fueled six chord progression. At around five minutes the vocals–a growl really–starts up. At 8 minutes a new pattern emerges. Two chugging chords and then a roaring low note–practically trademark Boris.
“Resonance” was a new song for Boris. It is only echoed percussion–randomly and slowly hit. The title makes sense as these sounds echo and resonate for a long time after they are sounded. It’s not particularly interesting by itself but it works well with the Merzbow track tacked on.
“Rainbow” comes from the album Rainbow, a collaboration with Michio Kurihara. I don’t know this record, but if this is any indication of that release, it sounds like a string record. This is a quiet, pretty song–a sliding bass and a quietly echoing guitar riff as the song whispers along. Then Wata starts singing quietly as the bass slinks around. After three minutes a fuzzy guitar solo comes in drawing all attention to itself. It rips through and ends in a wall of noise before the vocals start again. This sounds very much like a Sonic Youth song.
Pulsing electronic noses open up “Sometimes” (a My Bloody Valentine cover). After a minute, feedback and chords come in. The vocals are nicely buried an you can clearly hear this is Boris’ take on MBV. It’s a slow drone wall rather than a wall of different sounds.
It segues into “Heavy Rain” (from Noise) which opens as just a series of electronic rumbles and feedback jamming until a pretty echoing chord comes in and Wata sings very quietly. After a minute and a half big droning chords ring out. Then its back to the quiet–whispered vocals and gentle echoing notes over a slow meandering bass. It soars quietly like this until the last 44 seconds which returns to the noise of the opening.
“Akuma No Uta” (from Akuma No Uta) is full of washes of notes, drones and gongs. Over the course of the 11 and a half minutes of this song, it morphs into loud distorted chords drones ending with a slow heavy two note riff that fades with gongs.
“Akirame Flower” (originally from Golden Dance Classics a split EP with 9dw that I don’t know) opens with watery noises and electronic beat before raw guitar and vocals come in. This is a softer drone with a pretty guitar solo on top of the fuzz. The last note rings out and segues into the distorted bent chords of “Vomitself.”
“Vomitself” is the heaviest thing here–heavily distorted chords pummel along while growled vocals creak though. It’s remarkable how heavy it is with no drums.
[READ: February 5, 2021] “Jamaica”
In this story, a man who is not allowed to go to his wife’s book club, finds a way to be a part of it
Everett is the narrator and he tells us about his family. His daughter Theresa is dating a man much older than her (of whom Everett disapproves highly); Thomas his son who was born blind. TJ their dachshund is as much a part of the story as anyone else. His wife, Jillian, hosts the The Gorgon Book Club.
The attendees are Theresa, Dorry Smith a semi-professional archer–right down to carrying a bow and arrow with her wherever she goes, Luce Winningham who has “a Peter Pan haircut and a perky disdain for wearing a brassiere.” There’s also Gwen Kirkle who loves animals more than anything (and often brings conversations to a halt when she talks about them). The final attendee is Abigail Van Roost.
Everett and Abigail dated in high school. Then she had a terrible accident. Everett (out of cowardice) broke up with her and started dating Jillian. Amazingly, Abby (who is in a wheelchair) is fine with the arrangement, She is happily married herself now and treats young Thomas like a prince. Continue Reading »
Posted in 9dw, Archery, Blindness, Book Club, Boris, David Schickler, Dogs, Marriage Trouble, Merzbow, Mice, Michio Kurihara, My Bloody Valentine, Parenting, Sonic Youth | Leave a Comment »
February 12, 2021 by Paul Debraski
[POSTPONED: February 12, 2021] KT Tunstall / New Reveille [rescheduled from March 27, 2020; moved to December 10, 2021]
The SOPAC site says that new dates will be announced for this show. It’s nice to read postponed rather than cancelled.
When it was announced that KT Tunstall was going to play SOPAC, my first thought was probably, huh, she’s still around?
Then over the last few months I’ve been seeing more and more about her. I also feel like her name keeps cropping up in local venues.
After listening to a live show of hers on WXPN, I realized that she’s really good (and released songs I didn’t realize were hers). I had no intention of going to this show but with all of her shows rescheduled and the new one being moved to next year, this might be a nice show to go to.
New Reveille is an Americana/bluegrass band from North Carolina. They’ve got banjo, fiddle and a ton of attitude. While they are definitely in the country vein, I think the bluegrass and the rockingness (they cover The Killers live) makes them a potentially fun live band. For the three shows in the area, she has three different opening acts. This one might be the most fun.
Posted in Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, Coronavirus, KT Tunstall, New Reveille, Postponed, Quarantine, Sellersville Theater, Sellersville, PA, SOPAC, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA | Leave a Comment »
February 12, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: GORILLA BISCUITS-Start Today (1989).
In a post from a couple of days ago, Rebecca Kushner mentions a bunch of punk bands that she either knew or hung out with. I was amazed at how many of them I’d heard of but didn’t really know. So this seemed like a good opportunity to go punk surfing.
Of all of the bands that Kushner mentions, Gorilla Biscuits were the only one that I knew pretty well. I seem to recall a gimmick of this CD was that here were 99 tracks on it–possibly the first CD to have maxed out the track numbers?
Gorilla Biscuits released an EP and this album and then they broke up–although they do still tour and play a lot of punk festivals. Start Today is considered one of the great albums from the New York hardcore punk scene.
It’s a pretty classic hardcore record, with almost all of the songs two minutes or less. That’s fourteen songs in 24 minutes. And there’s some great lyrics in these songs too.
“Degradation” was a pretty straightforward attack on the Nazi skinheads infiltrating the punk scene.
True, they’re always at our shows
It doesn’t mean we fit in with their hatred and racism shit
They ruin our name, you know what I mean
Racial supremacists, they degrade our scene
You know you can kiss my ass before I read you ‘zine
There’s no good side to this white power scene
Kids beat down for standing up
Your turn will come because we’ve all had enough
But the album also plays around with expectations a bit. The album opens with a 20 second horn fanfare. Despite the brevity of the songs, many of them stick in some (short, simple, melodic) guitar solos.
Plus, the title song “Start Today” has a cool heavy breakdown in the middle that tacks on a harmonica solo (!). “Competition” includes a bit of whistling, too.
The album has two bonus tracks “Sitting around At Home” which is a Buzzcocks cover. The vocals are very different on this one. So much that I’d have guessed it was a different singer.
[READ: February 10, 2021] “The Butcher’s Wife”
This story is about the daughter of drunken Polish man who lived on a farm in Minnesota.
Roy Watzka loved his wife with all of his heart. She died when their daughter Delpine was very young, and Roy fell apart. He devoted more of his love to photoshop his deceased wife than his daughter. Despite Prohibition, Roy found ways to drink and he drank a lot.
Delphine tried to get away–she went to secretarial school. But as her father’s health began to fail, she returned home to care for him.
When she went into town to get some food, she entered the meat market and met Eva Waldvogel.
Eva sensed a kindred spirit in Delphine and invited her behind the counter to taste the lard that she had prepared. Eva’s husband had been trained as master butcher in Germany and he had a special process to render his fat. As they spoke Delphine mentioned her father and Eva knew of him (everyone did).
Soon enough Delphine was working in the shop.
Eva treated her like a sister. Eva’s husband Fidelis was a tougher person. He could haul hundred pound slabs of beef. He was abrupt and barely spoke to Delphine. She decided she would avoid him as much as she could while working in his shop. Continue Reading »
Posted in Alcoholism, Cancer as plot device, Gorilla Biscuits, Louise Erdrich, Rachel Kushner, Short Story, The Buzzcocks | Leave a Comment »
February 11, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: CRO-MAGS-The Age of Quarrel (1986).
In a post from a couple of days ago, Rebecca Kushner mentions a bunch of punk bands that she either knew or hung out with. I was amazed at how many of them I’d heard of but didn’t really know. So this seemed like a good opportunity to go punk surfing.
Cro-Mags are another of those classic punk bands that I never really listened to. I mean, sure I’ve heard of them. And that album cover is well known to me. I just never gave them a listen.
This is their debut album. They are still together but have only released 6 records. And their later stuff is much more heavy metal oriented. But this first one is classic punk.
There a whole bunch of really short songs–eight under two minutes. But there were hints at the metal direction because there are also some longer songs too. Opener “We Gotta Know” is over three minutes and even has a wild guitar solo from Parris Mitchell Mayhew. “Seekers of the Truth” runs to over four minutes and is comparatively rather slow paced.
But the punk elements are there too. Chanted call and response and a song like “World Peace” has a good moshing break down.
Overall, it sounds a bit like a few of the metal albums form the 80s that I really liked. There’s no reason I shouldn’t have listened to this back then. They’ve even got pointed lyrics that as a teen I would have really gotten into
Interestingly, their follow up album, Best Wishes, had a big lineup change. Their bassist (and the only guy who has been with the band for all of these years) Harley Flanagan took over on vocals. His singing style was very different. The short songs are gone and the metal feel really dominates.
In Kushner’s essay she talks about Harley the hare krishna and you can see that spirituality in his lyrics
Days of Confusion which is only 2 minutes long has this lyric
In these days of confusion much illusions try to get you
Try to trick you Every single day
Much aggravation and frustration
Devastation always heading my way
And I know why I’m suffering
Looking for satisfaction my mind keeps leading me astray
And I know and I see spiritually there’s gotta be a better way
It’s nice when bands do the right thing.
[READ: February 2, 2021] “Passeur”
A man is in Krakow, the only major Polish city to have survived World War II without its buildings being severely demolished.
He is staying in “a pension” (which I’m picturing as a hostel) and asks where the nearest ATM is. I enjoyed this line:
It’s not far, she said, sighing regretfully, as if she wished she were sending me to the other side of the world.
He says he has never been in this square before, but he knows it by heart. Or at least he knows the merchants–grandmothers selling vegetables and home-made goods.
Then he looks in a barbershop and he sees a man who looks comfortable there, Ken.
Ken was born in New Zealand and died there. Continue Reading »
Posted in Chess, Cro-Mags, Death, John Berger, New Yorker, New Zealand, Nostalgia, Old Age, Pigeons, Poland, Rachel Kushner, Short Story | Leave a Comment »
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SOUNDTRACK: THE REDNECK MANIFESTO-The How (2018).
Despite a terrible name that would keep me away from wanting to see them, The Redneck Manifesto are a very interesting and complicated band. I discovered them through the book of Irish drummers. TRM drummer Mervyn Craig is in the book.
I Just Read About That... 