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Kazuo Ishiguro–“A Village After Dark” (New Yorker, May 21, 2001)

August 9, 2020 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: MASTODON-“Fallen Torches” (2020).

Mastodon has a new collection of rarities and B-sides coming out soon.  I’m not sure if this single is a new song or an old one, but man is it good.

It features just about every aspect of Mastodon in one song.  There’s massive drums, heavy guitars, angry vocals, soaring clean vocals and many different parts.

The song opens with a heavy riff and vocals–a classic Mastodon sound.  After 45 second the guitars soar high and the second vocalist sings even higher, soaring the title before returning to the main verse riff.

A third part adds speed before a fourth part slows things down with a lot of sinister echo.  It’s a great breather that slowly rebuilds the song with some more great riffs and intense drums.  The end is suitably heavy.

I can’t wait to hear the rest of the record.

[READ: August 1, 2020] “A Village After Dark”

This story shows the aftermath of something we never learn the details about.

A man, Fletcher, returns to a village in England.  He used to live there many years ago, but he is now older and easily disoriented. He didn’t recognize anything in the village.

But he needed to rest, so he stopped at door at random and knocked very hard on it.

While he was knocking, a young woman called out to him.  She asked if he was “one of that lot with David Maggis and all of them.”  He says he was, but that Maggis was hardly the most important one.

He realizes that he and his friends were all before her time.  Nevertheless, she was excited he was there, saying that all of the people her age looked up to him.  She invited him to her cottage. Continue Reading »

Posted in Huh?, Kazuo Ishiguro, Mastodon, Regrets, Short Story | 3 Comments »

Neil Labute–“Layover” (New Yorker, May 28, 2001)

August 8, 2020 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: DEAD KENNEDYS-“Nazi Punks Fuck Off” (ill.Gates x RIP KENNY Remix) (2020).

The Dead Kennedys are one of my favorite punk bands.  Lyrically (thanks Jello Biafra) they were always sharp and on point.  But musically they were also adventurous and interesting–their songs were never simple, easy punk.

This song is one of the few exceptions–it’s really fast (the whole song is a minute long) and the lyrics are kind of inaudible, which is a bit of a shame.  Really all you can hear is the screamed Fuck Off!

So this remix is by ill.gates (hilarious name) and RIP Kenny.  I don’t know anything about them (except that ill.gates is a Canadian EDM artist).

The remix is hardly a remix at all.  The original riff is present, but it’s mostly a lot of interesting trippy EDM beats and distorted vocals shouting “fuck off.”  The breaks in the song are, unexpectedly, the beginning of the original recording where Biafra says, “Uh, ‘Nazi Punks Fuck Off,’ take 3.” They then distort this spoken line for each subsequent break.

I don’t think there are any other words.  Which means that ill.gates’ story about the song is more entertaining than the song itself.  But if this remix introduces more people to the Dead Kennedys that’s no bad thing.

RIP Kenny and I made this remix in 2019 and then spent an ENTIRE YEAR trying to track down Dead Kennedys and get permission to release it. Jello Biafra is not a big computer guy, so we had to actually burn a physical CD and mail it in… hilarious. Anyway, Jello eventually listened to it and gave us his blessing for an official release so long as we use the funds to oppose fascism. Sounds good to me.”
Al proceeds from this release go to the ACLU to support civil rights in the USA .

But heck, give to the ACLU, we need it.

[READ: August 1, 2020] “Layover”

This is a short story that is pretty much like a skit from a sketch comedy troupe.  Although without an audience, it’s hard to know if the story is funny.

Essentially, a man in an airport scopes out a woman (“now there’s a nice lay”).  He lets her pass and she flickers a smile at him.  Clearly she wants him.

When she asks him to pass a spork, he knows that she is his. Continue Reading »

Posted in Dead Kennedys, Jello Biafra, Marriage Trouble, Neil LaBute, New Yorker, Sex, Sexism, Short Story | Leave a Comment »

Porridge Radio (Boot & Saddle, Philadelphia, PA, August 7, 2020) [POSTPONED]

August 7, 2020 by Paul Debraski

[POSTPONED: August 7, 2020] Porridge Radio

indexI heard about Porridge Radio from NPR.  They are exactly the kind of weirdo post-punk British band that I love and would never hear anywhere on the radio.

Singer Dana Margolin is more of a talker than a singer.  Her accent is thick and her intensity is palpable.  The band mixes melody and noise in an unexpected way.  And of course there’s “the growing legend of their intense live shows.”

This show promised to be about twenty people (which technically would have been okay for a legal small gathering) and it would have been fantastic.

I hope they can make it back.

Posted in Boot & Saddle, Coronavirus, Philadelphia, PA, Porridge Radio, Postponed, Quarantine | Leave a Comment »

Anne Enright–“In the Bed Department” (New Yorker, May 14, 2001)

August 7, 2020 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: MELANIE FAYE-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #60 (August 5, 2020).

Melanie Faye was the impressive guitarist during the Masego Tiny Desk Concert.

She opens her set with an impressive instrumental–the introduction to Jimi Hendrix’ “Little Wing.”  Her fingerwork is fast and clear and really fluid.

Then she starts properly with the first of her three originals, “Super Sad Always.”

The song has some clever complex lyrics:

In a sense, you’re innocent
But your inner sense is fading

I can’t decide if I like her voice or not–I want it to be a bit more substantial, I guess.  Of course, her muted guitar works quite well with her mute singing.  She puts an interesting extra muted effect on her (excellent) guitar solo

“It’s A Moot Point” is slower with some more amazing guitar work in the instrumental middle section of the song.

“Eternally 12” has another fantastic guitar introduction. It’s fantastic how great her guitar playing is–so delicious without being show-offy.  This song has a lot of prerecorded backing vocals which sound very nice and kind of flesh out the voclas in a way that her songs seem to need.

Lyrically this song is interesting but the repetition of the word “eternal” is a bit tiresome.

[READ: August 1, 2020] “In the Bed Department”

This story is about Kitty, a divorced woman who works in a department store–in the bed department.

The big news is that the store has just installed an escalator.  Kitty is suspicious of the escalator–she doesn’t know how it works and she doesn’t like it.  She also didn’t like the workers–men covered in a dirty-looking tan, often adjusting their zip on the way back from the loo.

Kitty recently seduced a man from the local Drama Society.  He was twenty years older than she was.  Tom did set and Kitty had s mall walk on role.  He had been courting her, slowly for a couple of months while they worked together on Johnny Belinda.

He drove her home most nights and one night she invited him in.  Her boys were home, but they were in their own rooms, so she initiated right there.  “It was awkward all the way through and quite satisfying.”

She didn’t tell him that had gotten pregnant.

She wasn’t actually sure she was pregnant, mind you.  It could have been “the change,” but she trusted her body.  What would it be like having a wee baby around the house.

Her life was full of ups and downs like an escalator.

This story felt like it needed more….something.

Posted in Anne Enright, Coronavirus, Irish Writer, Masego, Pregnancy, Quarantine, Sex, Short Story, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Work | Leave a Comment »

Desmond Barry–“Dalton’s Box” (New Yorker, April 23 & 30, 2001)

August 6, 2020 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: KATE DAVIS-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #59 (August 4, 2020).

I hadn’t heard of Kate Davis before this Home Concert.

Her songs are simple and straightforward with a real timeless quality.  She reminds me a lot of Kathleen Edwards.  Turns out that she also co-wrote Sharon van Etten’s “Seventeen.”

Like so many artists, Kate Davis was to be on tour during the spring and summer of 2020. She was scheduled to play a concert at my desk in May. Sitting by her desk at home, Kate Davis is marking time by writing new music….  She’s an extraordinary lyricist. Her 2019 album, Trophy, was a sharply worded collection of songs, many about growing up and a powerful tune about her father’s death.

“Cloud” has a great melody throughout, and the chorus is great–with her falsetto moment an unexpected bonus.  The slow middle section is also a really nice surprise.

“Open Heart,” the second song performed for her Tiny Desk (home) concert, is about a broken heart. It’s a subject tackled by many, but her lyrical prowess sets the scene in the hospital, where the doctor cuts her open, sees her critical condition, and takes out her broken heart. She sings, “Put the pieces back together, looks like it’s been shattered by a bad love,” later adding, “You’d rather feel this pain than have a broken heart.”

This song features another great delivery as she sings the lyric high but then adds a lower almost spoken word during the bridge “deep…breath.”  The song builds and builds to the end and I love that the chugging guitar chords ends with a slightly-off-ringing note that adds a cool amount of dissonance to a song about a broken heart.

I guess these songs sound different on the record since the blurb says:

Hearing these songs stripped to their essence–just Kate Davis and her guitar–exposes her charm and wit.

“I Like Myself” is a finger-picked style of playing–sounding quite different from the other songs.  The lyrics are very thoughtful:

I kind of like myself
Cause she likes me
And since I think the world of her
And she of me
Then I’m exactly who and where I want to be
Who and where I want to be

“Ride or Die,” was written before quarantine and its perspective has changed since.  The chord structure and vocal melody is unusual and very cool.    I especially like the way she adds a really slow section in the middle–a picked melody (of more unusual chords). This is my favorite of her songs and I’m looking forward top hearing more.

Davis looks at the camera a lot during this performance–making her seem very confident, which I gather she is.

[READ: August 1, 2020] “Dalton’s Box”

I loved this story.  It was fast and colloquial.  It was funny and dark and I want to read more stories like it.

The story is basically a conversation between two brothers.  The one brother asks if the other remembers Mick Dalton.  He does.

A few months back, Dalton won the Lottery.  Not a huge amount though, about 3,000 quid.  And Dalton, who is usually in trouble for some petty crime or another, says he’s going to invest it.

That means a get rich quick(ish) scheme selling contraband.  But this time Dalton is smart, you see.  He’;s going to sell contraband Marlboro cigarettes (I have no idea how that’s going to work). Continue Reading »

Posted in Cigarettes, Coronavirus, Funny (ha ha), Kate Davis, Kathleen Edwards, Quarantine, Sharon Van Etten, Short Story, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert | Leave a Comment »

Stick Men (Sellersville Theater, Sellersville, PA, August 5, 2020) [POSTPONED]

August 5, 2020 by Paul Debraski

[POSTPONED: August 5, 2020] Stick Men [moved to April 1, 2021]

indexBack in June, as larger shows were getting postponed into August and September, I held out hope that August might allow for some smaller shows like this one.

I had never heard of Stick Men until after a King Crimson show when I heard some fans talking about how amazing Stick Men are.

The band is a trio of Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto and Markus Reuter.  Levin and Mastelotto play in Crimson (stick and drums respectively) and Markus Reuter plays his eight string touch guitar covering much more ground than a guitar or a bass.  Mastelotto’s drumming encompasses not just the acoustic kit, but a unique electronic setup too, allowing him to add loops, samples, percussion, and more.

To be able to see these musicians up close (without all the distractions of the amazement of a King Crimson concert) would be so cool.  Stick Men play once in awhile, although the last few times they’ve been around I couldn’t make it.

Rescheduled to April is a good thing, although I wish they were somewhere closer than Sellersville.

Posted in Coronavirus, King Crimson, Postponed, Quarantine, Sellersville Theater, Sellersville, PA, Stick Men | Leave a Comment »

Louise Erdrich–“The Shawl” (New Yorker, March 5, 2001)

August 5, 2020 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: JOHN LEGEND-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #58 (August 3, 2020).

I don’t know all that much about John legend.  I know he’s released a lot of popular music and that he seems to be famous for being famous at this point.

But wow, this set is great.  Legend has a terrific voice.  I’m not really sure what genre his music is–it’s very soulful–becuase it’s just really great songwriting.

They kick off the set with “Ooh Laa,” a song John calls “doo-wop meets trap” it’s also the lead-off track to his summer album, Bigger Love. 

I don’t know how the “trap” part fits into this song, but the combination is fantastic.  The song opens with a sample of the “shoo bop shoo bop” from The Flamingos’s “I Only Have Eyes for You.  It works as a great foundation for this song of love and romance.  It’s got a great chorus of, yes, “Ooh Laa,” which is a perfect line for this song.  It also has Kaveh Rastegar on upright bass, which adds a great slow jazzy feel.

“Wild” opens with a quiet guitar melody from Ben O’Neill that reminds me of a Beach House song (although it sounds very different with Legend singing).   It’s fascinating how different this song sounds from “Ooh Laa” even though it is very clearly a John Legend song.  It’s also got a fantastic wailing guitar solo, which was completely unexpected.

All of the songs filmed on this day are from Bigger Love, including “Conversations in the Dark,” which John says is “a good song for babies to dance to — you might want to get married to it, too, if you’re so inclined.” Meanwhile, behind the band on a big screen reads, “Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.”

Legend sits at the piano and says you may know this song from This is Us or you may have seen my babies dancing to it.

It also opens with a quiet guitar melody and Legend’s gentle piano which fleshes out this lovely song.  The backing vocalists Keri Lee, Emi Secrest and Alana Linsey really shine on this song.  They sound great on all of them, but they really stand out here.

While introducing his final song, “Bigger Love,”he tells us that “I wrote all the songs before the pandemic, before we saw folks marching in the streets, mourning (the) life of George Floyd, expressing their outrage. But some of these songs feel even more appropriate now, feel like we need them more now then we did even when I wrote them. This song ‘Bigger Love’ is about the power of love to get us through tough times, the idea that when you have love, it makes you more resilient, it makes you more hopeful And we all need a little dance break, too, right?”

“Bigger Love” is catchy and bouncy with some great sounding drums from Jimmy “Rashid” Williams and simple keyboard splashes from Eugene “Man Man” Roberts.

[READ: August 1, 2020] “The Shawl”

This story is compact and written in a well-plotted style.

It begins with a story.  A story that the Anishinaabeg people on her street speak of.

A woman had two children whom she loved: a boy and a girl.  Then she had a baby girl with a different man.  She loved the new man more than her first man and decided to leave her family for the new man.  But she decided to bring her daughters with her.

On the way out of town, their carriage was attacked by wolves and the older girl fell out of the carriage and was killed.  All that was left of her was a torn and bloodied shawl. Continue Reading »

Posted in Anishinaabe, Beach House, Coronavirus, Drinking, First Nations, John Legend, Louise Erdrich, Native Americans, Quarantine, Racism, Short Story, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Wolves | Leave a Comment »

David Thorne–That’s Not How You Wash a Squirrel (2019)

August 4, 2020 by Paul Debraski

download (76)

SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-“My Religion is You” (2020).

download (75)This is another new single from The Flaming Lips’ new, more mellow album American Head.

This song starts as a piano ballad about various religions.

It’s not the most profound song but it’s chill

Yeah, Buddha’s cool
And you’re no fool
To believe anything
You need to believe in
If Hare Krishna
Maybe it’s the
Thing for you
Hey, that’s cool

The chorus kicks in with big fat synth notes that almost feel sinister, but really aren’t.  Wayne explains that he doesn’t need religions, because his religion “is you.”

I don’t need no religion
You’re all I need
You’re the thing I believe in
Nothing else is true
My religion is you

There’s a pretty guitar solo and the end of the song is an interesting mix of scattered drums and quite synth noises.  It’s not their best song for sure, but it grows on you.

[READ: June 2020] That’s Not How You Wash a Squirrel

David Thorne is an Australian smart ass.  This is his fifth collection of previously unreleased emails and essays.

The foreword of this book is written by Holly Thorne, David’s wife.  And it is hilarious.  The Foreforeword is him arguing with her about whether she will write the Foreword–but only if she doesn’t say something mean about him.

So she writes things like

Davis does have a stressful job but let’s be honest, he’s not clearing landmines.  Even on my worst days I’m not half the diva David is.

After writing some more hilarious paragraphs, you see in a different font:

David is very brave, I once saw him flick a snake off the patio furniture with a stick.

In the Postforeword, he complains about her foreword.  That he comes off like a fuckwit and that there is no mention of the snake.  Continue Reading »

Posted in Australia, David Thorne, Essays, Fire, Food, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Guns, Humiliation, Parenting, Smarty Pants, Squirrels, Technology, Teenagers, Tennis, The Flaming Lips, Threats, Toilets, Unlikable main character, Uri Geller, Video Games, Yuck! | Leave a Comment »

T. Coraghessan Boyle–“My Widow” (New Yorker, February 12, 2001)

August 3, 2020 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-“Flowers of Neptune 6” (2020).

After a series of much harsher, darker albums, The Flaming Lips’ new record, American Head (due out next month) promises a much brighter, warmer experience.  Perhaps one indication of the change is that the guest singer on this song is Kacey Musgraves.  Sadly, she is barely audible at all and doesn’t really add any of her own flare to the song.

“Flowers of Neptune 6” opens with a quiet piano melody.  There’s slow (albeit loud) drums and acoustic guitars–it’s a Flaming Lips ballad.  This one feels almost sixties-like with the echoing voices and the primary melody.  Not to mention the content:

doing acid and watching the light bugs glow -oh oh oh
like tiny spaceships in a row-oh oh oh

The chorus is slow but catchy and the end of the song is a minute of instrumental fade out with slide guitars, choruses of voices of a moment for Kacey to hum a solo.

[READ: August 1, 2020] “My Widow”

This story is broken into shorter sections as the dead narrator relates a story about his living widow.

First we learn that his widow is a cat person.  Or, perhaps more correctly, a crazy cat lady.  She has about thirty.  She feeds them and cares for them, but really doesn’t care about anything else.  So when the roof develops a leak, she ignores it and allows the water to drip right onto her bed.

It doesn’t seem like much is going to happen in this story. She ignores the roof until she can’t any longer and then calls a roofer in to repair it. But nothing much happens with that.

The scene shifts to shopping.  “In her day, my widow was a champion shopper.”  She has a collection of antique jewelry, glassware, china figures and the like” which the deceased says would be truly valuable if she took care of the house. Continue Reading »

Posted in Cats, Death, Kacey Musgraves, Liars, Lies, New Yorker, Short Story, T. Coraghessan Boyle, T.C. Boyle, The Flaming Lips, Violence, Yuck! | Leave a Comment »

Marilynne Robinson–“Jack and Della” (New Yorker, July 20, 2020)

August 2, 2020 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-“Dinosaurs on the Mountain” (2020).

After a series of much harsher, darker albums, The Flaming Lips’ new record, American Head (due out next month) promises a much brighter, warmer experience.

They have already released a few singles from the new album, like this one.

“Dinosaurs on the Mountain” starts with a pretty, almost childlike musical synth melody.  Wayne Coyne’s (older and more raspy) falsetto voice floats above the music as he sings “I wish the dinosaurs were still here and now.  It would be fun to see them playing on the mountain.”

The song builds with slow drums and acoustic guitars as the it shifts to a large bridge with appropriate soaring backing vocals.  The song also has a suitably vibrato-filled guitar solo.  In other words, it sounds a lot like classic Flaming Lips.

This song (and album) is meant to hearken back to The Soft Bulletin, which it does, somewhat.  But the biggest difference is that the whole song feels like it’s hiding under an extra layer of distortion–like they couldn’t escape the production style of their latter albums.  Bulletin was very clean, and I do rather miss that cleanness on this lovely song.

[READ: July 20, 2020] “Jack and Della”

I had read an excerpt from this series of books a couple years ago.  I was really interested in that first excerpt.  Although this one I found a little less interesting.  Possibly because the main character of this story (who is briefly in the other excerpt) is down and out.  And without having seen how he got that way (which I think the other book showed), it’s hard to get fully into this character.

But he certainly comes across as an interesting fellow and knowing his past makes him somewhat more compelling.

Jack (full name John Ames Boughton) is the son of a preacher.  Most of his father’s sermons were directed at Jack, who was not always the best boy he could be.

Jack didn’t take much away from his father’s sermons, but the one about always having good manners did stick with him. So when a young black lady dropped some papers on the pavement, he crossed the street to help her gather them.  Her name was Della Miles. She thanked him and called him Reverend because of the black suit he was wearing (he had bought it for his mother’s funeral and was about to return it. Continue Reading »

Posted in Drinking, Excerpt, New Yorker, Racism, Short Story, The Flaming Lips, Unfinished series, Violence, W.H. Auden, William Carlos Williams | Leave a Comment »

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