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Lina Wolff–“The Report” (Harper’s, August 2020)

August 16, 2020 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-Archive Volume Three “2 Long Songs” (2005/2020). 

In early August, Boris digitally released six archival releases.  Volume Three is called “2 Long Songs” and that’s what it contains.

There are two songs in this live recording, one is 15 minutes, the other is 22 and this whole recording is just fantastic.

Originally released in 2005 from the US label “aRCHIVE”, limited to 600 copies which sold out immediately. A precious live recording from their early days, of Boris’s 1996 debut single song release, “Absolutego”, and “flood”, released in 2000, performed live together as “1 song, 1 production”.
(Reissued as part of Archive 1 on March 5, 2014. Limited to 1,000 copies).

Like the other Archive releases, this one was also recorded at Koenji 20000V.  This time in 2001–so the band and the quality of the recording are much improved.

“Absolutego” is a sixty minute song released as one long track on Boris’ debut album.  So a 15 minute version is quite truncated.  This version has a slow three-note bass line that slowly adds feedbacking guitars and cymbals.   At two and a half minutes, the drums loudly pound in–like Atsuo is introducing himself to the set.  But five minutes, the full on washes of noise have taken over the song and a few minutes later, Atsuo starts scream/singing.  The song starts speeding up and by 12 minutes there’s lots of cymbal crashing as the song crescendoes into a conclusion of feedback and warped sounds.

“flood” is a 70 minute song (!).  It is their third album (which was recorded in four parts).  This song is much prettier and far less abrasive and here is only 22 minutes long.  It opens with a pretty, quiet melody.  It is slow and moody punctuated by cymbals and echoing noises.  At four minutes the vocals come in–quietly singing in harmony.  Then the drums come crashing in, building to waves of guitar noise and cymbals as the loud bass pushes the song along.  A break introduces a high three note riff as the singing continues.  Is that Wata singing?  By fifteen minutes, Atsuo is making judicious use of the gong–a great punctuating sound.  The last seven minutes are a conclusion as the song drones out to the end.

This is one of my favorite archival releases.  The band sounds great and they perfectly jam out these long songs.

Takeshi: Bass & Vocal ;  Wata: Guitar & Echo ; Atsuo: Drums & Vocal

[READ: August 15, 2020] “The Report”

This is a short story and I agree with the first sentence: “The report is bizarre.”

A woman has hired a man to bring information about her husband.  The man followed the woman’s husband who worked at an office in Barcelona.  But he spends a lot of his time in Madrid.  With another woman.  They meet every Thursday and Friday

The wife does not want to know the other woman’s name.

But the man tells her that the other woman is very ugly–her husband turns off the light as soon as he can because, “her face frightens him.”  He takes long showers after lovemaking.

Then the man stands up and says that there are solutions to problems like this–we know how to get rid of people.   But the wife is not interested. Continue Reading »

Posted in Boris, Drinking, Harper's, Huh?, Humiliation, Japanese Music, Lina Wolff, Marriage Trouble, Saskia Vogel, Sex, Short Story, Translation | Leave a Comment »

Phish: Summer Tour 2020 (Atlantic City Beach, Atlantic City, NJ, August 15 & 16, 2020) [POSTPONED]

August 15, 2020 by Paul Debraski

[POSTPONED: August 15 & 16, 2020] Phish [moved to Aug 13, 14, and 15, 2021]

indexI have seen Phish a bunch of times but I will always try to see them again.  And this summer tour promised to be interesting.

Phish will perform three shows on the Atlantic City beach Aug. 14 through 16, according to promoter Live Nation Entertainment. Atlantic City will be one of only two stops for Phish in the Northeast on their summer 2020 tour.

Atlantic City is a bit far for me (okay, it’s really quite far), but this seemed like a fun way to see them.  So I got tickets for two of the three nights (I decided driving to Atlantic City of a Friday night was a fool’s errand).

Then on May 1, quite early in the pandemic, Phish made this announcement”

Due to the ongoing pandemic, we sadly have made the difficult decision to reschedule Phish’s entire 2020 summer tour, now moving to the summer of 2021. We’ve been as excited as ever to play music for you all, and are so heartbroken to postpone these dates. The health and well-being of Phish fans, our touring crew, and the communities in which the band plays is our top concern.

I assume my tickets are going to be for the 14th & 15th 2021.  I wonder if they had printed any merch yet.  I hope not–although it could be a pseudo-collector’s item like the Curveball shirts.

Posted in Atlantic City, NJ, Coronavirus, Phish, Postponed, Quarantine | Leave a Comment »

Tahereh Mafi–Furthermore (2016) [audiobook 2016–Bronson Pinchot]

August 15, 2020 by Paul Debraski

[LISTENED TO: August 2020] Furthermore

The pandemic pretty much nixed our summer plans.  But we decided to look for someplace close by, in a low-infection rate area, for a short getaway.  It only amounted to a two night trip, but it was well appreciated.  We traveled to the Lake George region and that meant we needed an audio book.

I absolutely love Bronson Pinchot as a narrator.  I will listen to literally anything he reads.  He tends to read darker materials, so the only trick is trying to find something family-friendly.  Fortunately, he reads a lot of those as well.  I’d never heard of this book before (although I was vaguely aware of Mafi’s other series “Shatter Me”).  But as soon as I saw that Pinchot was reading it, I checked it out.

The only bad thing about Pinchot’s narration in this story is that there aren’t all that many characters in it.  Pinchot has an astonishing range of voices at his disposal.  So, to only show off 8 or so means you can’t fully appreciate how great he is.  But the voices he chose were outstanding.

And the story was really interesting.  Mafi has taken a fairly common idea–travelling to another world–and has infused it with all kinds of novel ideas and conceits.

First off, the original world that the characters start in is not our own.  Alice Alexis Queensmeadow lives in Ferenwood, a land full of magic.  Magic is so integral to Ferenwood, that it is a part of everything–including the people who live there.  And that magic is displayed through color.  Color that is abundant and vibrant and breathtaking.

Except for Alice.  Alice was born without color.  She is pale as anything.  Her hair is white, her skin is white–she is unlike anyone else in Ferenwood and she hates that about herself. Continue Reading »

Posted in Aliens, Alternate Reality, Audiobooks, Bronson Pinchot, Fantasy, Foxes, Funny (ha ha), Magic, Pandemic, Parenting, Ransom Riggs, Supernatural, Surreal, Tahereh Mafi, Vacation | Leave a Comment »

Waxahatchee / Fenne Lily (Asbury Lanes, Asbury Park, NJ, August 14, 2020) [POSTPONED]

August 14, 2020 by Paul Debraski

[POSTPONED: August 14, 2020] Waxahatchee / Fenne Lily [moved to April 6, 2021]

indexWaxahatchee was supposed to play Union Transfer back in April.  That show was rescheduled to October.  But in the interim, she scheduled this date at Asbury Lanes.

Union Transfer holds about 1,000 people.  Asbury Lanes holds about 100.  What a different experience that would be.  Even if you went to both shows.

The one real difference though is the opening act.  OHMME is in Union Transfer, Fenne Lily is here.  I loved OHMME when I saw them and want to see them again.

I saw Fenne Lily open for Lucy Dacus and I really enjoyed her.  In fact, I would enjoy seeing her again as well.  So, her as an opening band isn’t a bad thing by any means, It’s just not as good as OHMME.

I’ve seen Waxahatchee twice–once with a full band and once solo.  I like her, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to see her again.  She has a new album out and I’ve heard it’s much more mellow than her last couple, so that doesn’t really appeal to me.

I’m curious if this show will be rescheduled.  It would be fun to see her in a small space (with social distancing).

wxa

Posted in Asbury Lanes, Asbury Park, NJ, Coronavirus, Fenne Lily, Jeff Tweedy, Lucy Dacus, OHMME, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, Union Transfer, Waxahatchee | Leave a Comment »

Joshua Braff–Peep Show (2010)

August 14, 2020 by Paul Debraski

download (89)SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-Archive Volume Two “Drumless Shows” (2005/2020). 

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In early August, Boris digitally released six archival releases.  Volume Two is called “Drumless Shows” and that’s what it contains.

I tend to think of drummer Atsuo as the leader of the band–he’s the mouthpiece after all. Plus, he’s the most larger than life of the three.  And, his drum sound is huge.

To have 46 minutes of drummless Boris music is quite a change.  It is, as the blurb says, the beginning of Drone Metal history.

Originally released in 2005 from the US label “aRCHIVE”, limited to 600 copies which sold out immediately. Includes 2 songs recorded live from Boris’s 1998 studio album “Amplifier Worship” and 1 song from “Early Demo”, all arranged for a drumless performance. The beginning of Drone Metal history in 1997.
(Reissued as part of Archive 1 on March 5, 2014. Limited to 1,000 copies)

The first of two songs from Amplifier Worship is “Huge” which was also on Archive 1 (this version was recorded at Nagoya Music Farm 9th Aug 1997).  It is 17 minutes long and is very different sounding without the drums.  It’s all drone with one of the instruments sounding almost like a didgeridoo.  After ten minutes echoing screamed vocals comes in but the drone remains.

The final two songs were recorded at Koenji 20000V 8th Aug 1997.  “Mosquito” was also on Archive 1.  It was three minutes there, but it is stretched out to 17 minutes of slow pummeling chords and guttural noises from Atsuo (I assume).  After ten minutes Atsuo starts chanting slowly with the thumping chords.  The final chords echo and feedback as they segue into

“Vomitself” also from Amplifier.  This track is only 12 minutes of drone.  About six minutes in the melody changes briefly before reverting back to the original sound.  For the final two or so minutes, squealing feedback brings this archive to a close.

Takeshi: Bass & Vocal ; Wata: Guitar & Echo ; Atsuo: Drums & Vocal.

[READ: August 12, 2020] Peep Show

Thirteen years ago I read Braff’s The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green and really liked it.  Then I forgot all about him.

This book was nothing like his more whimsical first novel.

It is set in the mid 1970s.  The main character is David Arbus, a seventeen year old high school student in New Jersey.  His main interest is photography.  He has a younger sister, Debra, whom he loves very much.  But his parents are something else entirely.

David’s father owns “real estate” in New York City.  This means that he owns The Imperial, a burlesque theater where women strip for money.  But this is the 1970s and men don’t just want tame strip shows anymore–they want to see everything.  They want porn flicks.  They want peep show booths.  They want sex toys.

But David’s father doesn’t want any of that.  He wants his business to stay “classy,” even though all of his friends and partners think he’s crazy for passing up the opportunity to make a lot more money.

David is aware of his father’s business although Debra is not. Continue Reading »

Posted in Boris, Culture Shock, Funny (ha ha), Japanese Music, Joshua Braff, Photography, Pornography, Religion, Set in New Jersey!, Sex, Sexism | Leave a Comment »

Colin Jost–A Very Punchable Face: A Memoir (2020)

August 13, 2020 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-Archive Volume One “Live 96-98” (2005/2020)

In early August, Boris digitally released six archival releases.  Volume One is called “Live 96-98” and that’s what it contains.  There’s eight songs all recorded in the same place Koenji 20000V, once a year or so.

Originally released in 2005 from the US label “aRCHIVE”, limited to 600 copies which sold out immediately. Compiled from live recordings during Boris’s “Power Violence” period 1996 – 1998, including songs from the 1998 studio album “Amplifier Worship” and Archive Volume Zero “Early Demo”.  (Reissued as part of Archive 1 on March 5, 2014. Limited to 1,000 copies).

The first two songs were recorded in December 1996.  They are not for the faint of heart.

“Huge” is a ten minute drone.  It’s full of feedback and slow chord progressions that repeat until after five minutes, when Wata hits a high note and Atsuo starts screaming along with the thumping drums.  It segues into “Hush” which is 53 seconds of thrash: pounding guitar and drums, including something of a drum solo by the end while someone sings to it.

The next chunk of songs were recorded six months earlier.  “Soul Search You Sleep” is nearly 9 minutes of crashing chords with lots of screamed vocals.  There’s a brief fast section before the slow drones return.  Wata takes a guitar solo near the end which segues into “Vacuuum” which is a minute and a half long.  It starts with that wailing guitar solo until the pummeling drums and screamed vocals take over.  It ends with feedback that segues into “Mosquito” a slower song that has chanted vocals from both Atsuo and Takeshi.

“Mass Mercury” was recorded almost a year later.  Things aren’t radically different, but they allow some of the noise to drop away a bit more.  It opens with feedback and fast riffing guitars.  After a minute and a half everything drops out but some pulsing bass and guitar effects from Wata. The pulsing runs through to the end after a middle section of growls and drums.  It segues into “Scar Box,” which is a big slow riff.  Unexpectedly, mid song it briefly turns into a crushing hardcore song with shouted growly vocals until it slows back to crashing heavy chords.

The final track is the newest of the bunch.  It’s 8 minutes long and starts as a fast hardcore song.  Then a bass and drum rumble takes over and things slow down while Wata makes some airplane-like sounds it her guitar.  The solo loops and phases through to the end until about a minute left when both singers start shouting through to the crashing end.

I’m not sure if they are singing in Japanese or just growling, but it’s a pretty intense 45 minutes of live music.

[READ: August 12, 2020] A Very Punchable Face

I wasn’t really sure how I felt about Colin Jost.  I like him on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update and yet as the title of his book says, he has a very punchable face.  And, as I say every time I read a memoir–I don’t really care about memoirs all that much.  And yet here’s another one I’ve read.  And it’s yet another one from a cast member of Saturday Night Live–a show that I don’t think is all that great (but the memoirs are usually quite good).

There was an excerpt form this book in the New Yorker and it made me laugh at loud, so I looked forward to reading the rest of the book.

The beginning is interesting in that he says he had a hard time learning to speak–an odd thing for a TV news presenter.  But really the most fun part starts when he tells us about the astonishing amount of bad fortune he has had–his delivery about it all is hilarious.

The chapter “You’re Gonna Need Stitches” lists the six times (throughout his life) that he has had to get stitches–one was from getting a surfboard to the face!  Indeed there are two stories of surfing –not something I expected from a guy from Staten Island.  The second one involves being saved by Jimmy Buffet (and how much Jost enjoys eating at Margaritaville restaurants–I can’t get over how much alcohol must be consumed at a this franchise).  There’s also a crazy story about him visiting Google and getting injured by the VR machine.  He even somehow managed to possibly have insect eggs laid under his skin.  Ew! Continue Reading »

Posted in Acting, Aidy Bryant, Andy Samberg, Boris, Chicago Blackhawks, Colin Jost, donald tRUMP, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Japanese Music, Jimmy Buffett, Leslie Jones, Memoirs, Michael Che, New Yorker, Pandemic, Political Humor, Politicians, Poo, Revenge, Saturday Night Live, Scarlett Johansson, Seth Meyers, Surfing, Wrestling, Yuck! | Leave a Comment »

Bryan Washington–“Heirlooms” (New Yorker, August 3 & 10, 2020)

August 12, 2020 by Paul Debraski

download (71)SOUNDTRACK: THAO NGUYEN-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #56 (July 28, 2020).

download (70)I have enjoyed a lot of music from Thao Nguyen and her band Thao and the Get Down Stay Down.  She plays an idiosyncratic type of indie rock that’s catchy but also quirky.  Although I haven’t heard much from her lately.

She plays three songs here and she talks a lot between songs.  What she has to says is both powerful and meaningful.

For her Tiny Desk (home) concert, Thao Nguyen opens with a somber version of “Temple,” the dance-oriented title track from Thao & The Get Down Stay Down’s new album. The song is an homage to her parents, who were refugees of the Vietnam War. Thao sings from the perspective of her mother, honoring their hard-fought freedom and their hopes that their daughter is blessed with the ability to pursue her own happiness. She recorded it as a trio with cellists (and neighbors) Elisabeth Reed and Andy Luchansky. It’s a powerful rendition that celebrates, in Thao’s words, “being queer and being out in my career, something that being out publicly has caused a lot of turmoil and unrest in my own life.”

I hadn’t heard the original of “Temple” before this, but after, I had to give it a listen.  The recorded version is faster and a lot more dancey.  This spare version is quite striking and really brings the lyrics to the fore.  Thao plays the guitar and the addition of Reed and  Luchansky makes the song far more somber.  She said they created this version just for Tiny Desk “because you deserve nice things.”

She says she’s been reading about addressing anti-black racism in Asian and Vietnamese culture.  She has become more educated about what has allowed Southeast Asian refugees to settle in America. Black civil rights leaders, the Black Power movement for directly and informed change in immigration law and made it less racist.

We also hear “Pure Cinema” from Temple which has another interesting twisting riff that she plays quietly as she sings.  She also plays a slightly atonal guitar solo which is really interesting, too.

She ends with a mandolin version of “Departure” from her 2016 album, A Man Alive.  Once again there’s a cool riff and she does some really cool slides up the fretboard as she plays.  I’ve not heard mandolin playing like this before.  I’d love for her and Chris Thile to do a mandolin show together.

[READ: July 31, 2020] “Heirlooms”

This story felt a lot like an excerpt.  I often wonder if pieces in the New Yorker are excerpts–usually when a story doesn’t feel like it ends properly.  This one actually ended pretty satisfyingly, but it just felt like there could be a lot more.

So this is an excerpt from Washington’s forthcoming novel Memorial.

I had read a story from Washington back in January that I really liked.  I’m not sure if that story is also from the novel, but it features a main character who is similar to the one in this excerpt.

The narrator is a man named Ben.  His boyfriend Mike has just left for Japan to be with his dying father.  Although the same day that Mike left, Mike’s mother Mitsuko came to visit.  This is not, apparently, a coincidence.

So this excerpt shows Ben trying to cohabitate with his boyfriend’s mother whom he has never met before.

Ben is angry at Mike.  Both because he has left his mother here, but also because Mike’s father left him for Japan when Mike was a teenager.  Mike hadn’t heard from him in over a decade, but he rushed off to him. Continue Reading »

Posted in Anti-war, Antiracism, Black Lives Matter, Calvin Trillin, Cooking, Coronavirus, Death, Essays, History, LGBTQ, Lottery, Lucinda Williams, Luck, Martin Luther King, New Yorker, Parenting, Quarantine, Racism, Shirley Jackson, Short Story, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, Thao Nguyen, Thao Nguyen, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence | Leave a Comment »

Clare Sestanovich–“Annunciation” (Harper’s, July 2020)

August 11, 2020 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: BECCA MANCARI-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #62 (August 11, 2020)

I saw Becca Mancari open for Joseph a couple of years ago.  She really won us over with her diverse musical sound (even though it was just her and a pedal steel guitar player on stage).

This set, with a full band, sounds very different and even better.

At the show, she was funny and thoughtful.  That attitude continues now.

She postponed this concert when the Black Lives Matter protests began in May: “I wanted to be so careful of respecting an extremely important movement in our country both now and then. So, we decided to all wait, learn, grow, protest, and listen.”

She has a new album The Greatest Part from which these four songs are taken.

The band she has assembled is terrific.  Zac Farro on drums (he is also in Paramore) plays many terrific flourishes and fills.  Bassist Duncan Shea (this is filmed in his woodsy home studio) doesn’t show off, but adds some great accents and lines as needed.  Guitarist Juan Solorzano plays perfectly off of Mancari–whether it’s leads or just interesting sounds.

Mancari’s songs often seek to reveal the unspoken, and you can hear that process in the way Caleb Hickman’s inventive keyboard parts respond to Mancari’s voice and Juan Solorzano’s searching guitar lines. And keyboardist Caleb Hickman fleshes out the sound.

Several of these home concerts have featured a full band, but

It’s a joy, in this time of isolation, to see her band connect and build something beautiful, despite the masks. “The band and I have been in our own little Corona-pod, but we wanted to be extra safe,” Mancari says of the protective gear.

“Hunter” starts with quietly sung vocals and guitars. I love the way the drums kick in about a minute into the song with six slow, powerful thumps followed by Solorzano’s raw, rough guitars.  The surprising pitch shift into the catchy “whoo”-filled chorus really makes the song special.

Introducing “First Time,” she says, “I came out when I was pretty young and it went pretty badly.”  This slower song is written for people like her to feel included.  The song is simple, but once again, the band fleshes it out wonderfully.  I love the cool theremin-like sounds from Solorzano and the super catchy middle part with a guitar solo and fun bass lines that make the chorus sound even catchier.

“Bad Feeling” has a gentle echo on this more down-tempo song.  It has a nifty retro feel.  And so does “Like This” which opens with a slow thumping bass line and some wah wah guitars.  The synths sound like a flute and you could easily see a flute solo floating over the middle of the song.

She introduces the last song, “I’m Sorry,” by saying, “When I wrote this record it was about my own personal journey towards transforming from anger into forgiveness.  It’s about learning to say that you’re sorry to yourself and others around you.”  The song is slow as befits the title.   The middle of the song has surprisingly catchy chorus and a fun dah dah dah dah dah part.  As the song ends it really rocks out again with great drums from Farro.

I’m looking forward to seeing her again.

[READ: August 10, 2020] “Annunciation”

This story is about Iris and it seems to race through her life, focusing on a few moments of significance.

It starts with Iris on a plane.  Her seat mates are a married couple sitting on either side of her.  The wife likes the window, the husband liked the aisle, Iris in the middle.  But they are not fighting–when the woman comes back from the bathroom, she happily shows Iris and her husband a birth control strip–they are pregnant!

On the way home from the airport, Iris tells her mother about this and her mother is appalled. How could they say something so early?  That baby could still die (Iris believes that the baby has died from the way her mother says that).

Years later, when she is about to graduate from college, Iris is dating a virgin, Ben.  She can’t figure out why he is still a virgin–he’s not ugly or weird.  On the night before graduation, she changes that.

A few days later Iris’ friend Charlotte laughs at her: A one-night stand with a virgin and she gets pregnant.  The movie writes itself.  She doesn’t tell Ben.

Iris is staying at Charlotte’s house.  Charlotte’s parents paid for the abortion and she promises she’ll pay them back even though they say she doesn’t have to.

Iris finds a place to live–it’s a room in the apartment of a married couple.  A married couple who sleeps with another married couple.  Iris doesn’t ask anything about this arrangement but Charlotte wants to find out all that she can. So on New Years Eve, instead of going to Charlotte’s family’s house, Charlotte comes to Iris’ weird set up.  By the end of the night Charlotte has had sex with the married couples.

A few days later, Iris is walking down the street and she sees Ben in a restaurant.  He is with an old lady and seems just as surprised to see her as she is to see him,.

The old lady insists that Iris sit with them.

I’ve only read one other story by Sestanovich and I really liked the open ended nature of it.  It felt incomplete in an intriguing way.  This one felt incomplete in a frustrating way.  There was just too much left out and I didn’t really care about any of the characters.

Posted in Abortion, Becca Mancari, Clare Sestanovich, College, Coronavirus, Harper's, Huh?, Joseph, Marriage Trouble, Paramore, Pregnancy, Quarantine, Sex, Short Story, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert | Leave a Comment »

Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky–“The Gamblers” (Harper’s, July 2020)

August 10, 2020 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: MOSES SUMNEY-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #61 (August 10, 2020).

Moses Somney has an otherworldly voice–it soars to unfathomable heights. He has a couple of albums and EPs out although I haven’t really explored them very closely.

He starts with “Bless Me” which starts with some washes of chords before he starts his amazing singing.  I love the addition of the guitar chords, which add a heavy grounding to this song.  When he loops his voice at the end of the song, it sounds just fantastic.

I am just so taken with his voice.  And in an interview about the album he said:

“With this album, I was like yo, I could die any minute so let me sing all the high notes but also all the low notes and also, also, also.”

His camera work is fascinating for this show.  There’s constant glitches and lines that make it look like it was recorded on a VHS.  Are these effects added afterward top make the footage look older, or is he possibly using old technology?

For the second song, “Me in 20 Years” the camera angle changes back and forth between a left and right view of him sitting at the keyboard.  But it seems to be random and you can’t even see the cameras.

The song is beautiful–more conventional than the soaring of “Bless Me” but focusing on some great songwriting.

Much of Somney’s latest album, græ, foreshadowed current events in ways he couldn’t even imagine, but his sense of humor about it is intact. “I’m performing songs off of my new album which I released in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, so that was fun,” he says, “but all of the songs are about loneliness and isolation so, who’s laughing now?”

“Polly” is played on guitar.  I love that the guitar work is simple and pretty but his voice floats all around the melody, soaring to the ether.  The song is quite long and tends to meander–it no doubt takes a few listens to really latch on to the melody.

For his Tiny Desk (home) concert, he recreates three songs from græ and closes with 2018’s “Rank and File,” yet another song all too relevant in 2020.  He introduces the song by saying that as he records this “The nation is ablaze with anti-police brutality protests.  This song is is dedicated to the protesters and the rioters and to black lives …  which matter”

“Rank and File” is my favorite song by far.  The song has a powerful message and the music is fascination.  In this case the music is created on the fly with looping.

He crates a beat by thumping his microphone.  He adds a “Hey” and some scratchy sounds on the mic.  He makes a melody with a cool vocal sound which he loops and shifts the pitch of.  Snapped fingers add a percussive element and he sets up the later refrain of “Hey 23456.”

He sings the powerful lyrics over all of this–which he judiciously adds and removes as needed.  He occasionally sings some really high notes.  The end of the song allows him to loop his soaring vocals as he improvises with the samples and some scatting.

Fantastic stuff.

[READ: August 10, 2020] “The Gamblers”

Two men, a bookkeeper and a poet are alone in a shack.  From morning until night they plated stuss.  Between them they had one pair of boots and no money.  They would forage for crusts of bread and kindling.

Then the poet had a stretch of good luck.  He won many hands, including winning the pair of boots back.

It was, thus, his turn to go out and forage.

The bookkeeper stayed inside.  Then he heard machine gun fire.  He stayed alone in the room all night long.

The next day the bookkeeper woke to a commotion outside.  Several women were surrounding a dead body.

The end adds a couple of surprising moments.

This is not, apparently, an excerpt.  It feels very Russian.  It was translated Joanne Turnbull.

Posted in Black Lives Matter, Coronavirus, Death, Gambling, Harper's, Joanne Turnbull, Luck, Moses Sumney, Quarantine, Racism, Short Story, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert | Leave a Comment »

Bit Brigade (Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA, August 9, 2020) [rescheduled date–POSTPONED]

August 9, 2020 by Paul Debraski

[POSTPONED: August 9, 2020] Bit Brigade [rescheduled from March 29]

indexBit Brigade was one of the first shows to get postponed due to the pandemic.  They were also one of the first bands that I saw post about how the band was their livelihood and how they were going to lose a lot of money from a postponed tour.

I sure hope they managed to make some money on the side and I’m very sorry for them that the show was postponed again.  Bit Brigade has played Johnny Brenda’s before and I’m sure they will be back again.

I saw Bit Brigade play Johnny Brenda’s back in 2018.  The premise behind a Bit Brigade show is that the band plays the soundtrack to a video game while their resident gamer plays the game.  The band is heavy and the sound is amazing.

Last time I saw them, they were playing The Legend of Zelda and it was phenomenal (The music is really good).  They came around last year playing a different game but I couldn’t go.

They were playing Zelda again this time around and although it might be more fun seeing a different game, each show is different depending on how well their gamer plays.

I really want to bring my son to this show, but Johnny Brenda’s doesn’t allow anyone underage to come to the show.

I don’t think that an opening act had been announced at this time.

 

Posted in Bit Brigade, Coronavirus, Johnny Brenda's, Legend of Zelda, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine | Leave a Comment »

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