January 14, 2020 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: beabadoobee-Loveworm (2019).
beabadoobee is Beatrice Kristi Laus, a 19 year-old singer-songwriter who was born in the Phillipines and lives in London. She has released some six EPs since 2018 and has been played on the radio on WXPN. I see she’s also headlining a small tour over here in the Spring.
Yesterday I listened to the bedroom version of this EP, and here is the original release in all of its glory. Interestingly, the sound isn’t all that much bigger, but there is a lot more instrumentation. And some of these songs definitely rock harder.
“Disappear” is played on a gentle electric guitar with swirling keys and a simple drum clicking sound. When the bass comes in after the first verse, the song feels really full (with a sprinkling of keyboard sounds added on top, too). The middle third has a nice little section with bells as everything else fades out for a moment.
“1999”s guitars sound a bit more downbeat, deeper. The middle has some lovely overdubbed guitar parts. I really like the repeated guitar melody that flows all the way to the end,
“Apple Cider” is wonderfully upbeat in this version. Bouncy guitars, more bells and her soft vocals make this sound like a perfect 90s alt-rock song. Just as I was about to say this song was perfect, it added some “oohh la las” which don’t quite fit. However, the crazy guitar solo(s) are very cool and more than make up for it.
“Ceilings” remains a quiet ballad with some nice falsetto vocals and trippy backing sounds that turn into a synthy solo.
“Angel” sounds different on this record too, with some staggered guitars and a fairly complex drum pattern. There’s some noisy electric guitar on this song too. I love the way this song rocks out at the end. The rocking continues on “You Lie All the Time” (which still sounds a bit like Juliana Hatfield). It rocks all the way through to the end,
The final song “Soren” is a slow ballad. With the two guitars it does actually sound quite different from the bedroom version, which is kind of cool since they are for the most part pretty similar.
I enjoyed both versions of this EP, but I like this one more. There’s more variety and the songs rock a bit more. I’m curious what her first full-length will sound like.
[READ: January 10, 2020] The Babysitters Coven
I don’t usually read books like this, but the cover caught my eye (I love judging a book by its cover) and I’m so glad I read it. It was fun and funny and mashed up ideas from existing stories into something all its own.
Esme Pearl is a babysitter. She and her best (and only) friend Janis started a Babysitter’s Club back in junior high. There were of course four of them in the club and each girl paralleled one of the girls in the original series. [I have never read those books, so I don’t know how much is taken from that series.]
I enjoyed Esme as a character for a number of reasons. She was a believable seventeen year old, but a shy and kind of solitary one. She uses some abbreviations, but the whole book is not littered with them. Lines like “the number one perk of babysitting is OPP–other people’s pantries” is a good example. Esme has a great tone of being above her school while still being unpopular (but not hugely so). She lives in Spring River Kansas home of the Bog Lemmings (“apparently by the time they’d gotten to Spring River all the good mascots had been taken”). About the cafeteria food: “I’d never seen a food that wasn’t brown.” Later she grabs what she things is curry but which turns out to be gravy.
She and Janis coordinate outfits every day. [I love the detail that Janis’ full name is Janis Jackson]. They don’t wear similar things at all, they just discuss the night before what their fashion choices will be and then show them off the next day, They both love going thrifting, so their outfits are unique. If I had one complaint about the book it’s that there’s no way a backwater town like Spring River would have such amazing thrift stores. Anyway, today “Janis was ‘Denise gets a step-daughter’ and I was “Sylvia Plath goes to prom.'”
Esme loves babysitting and she takes it very seriously–she does not wan any other kind of job, like where you wear a uniform–and she has built up a reliable collection of clientele. She and Janis really are the only game in town.
As the book opens, Esme is babysitting Kaitlyn, a demon baby. Not literally. She is just a wild girl who is high maintenance. But Esme thinks of her as baby Satan (Kaitlyn managed to get a Sharpie and draw all over the wall while Esme was peeing). But usually once Kaitlyn is asleep, she’s down. This night things are different. Esme heard a loud thunk and went upstairs, The door was locked–Esme would never lock the door. She somehow got the door open an saw that the bed was empty and the window was open. She looked out the window and saw Kaitlyn on the roof. Esme managed to get her back to safety. When Esme asked what happened, Kaitlyn described a guy who looked like David Bowie’s character in Labyrinth. She knew that Kaitlyn watched a lot of movies so she assumed it was a nightmare. But there was so much unexplained…. Continue Reading »
Posted in Babysitters, Beabadoobee, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dodgeball, Dogs, Funny (ha ha), Halloween, Magic, Monsters, Set at School, Supernatural, YA Books | Leave a Comment »
January 13, 2020 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: beabadoobee-Loveworm (Bedroom Sessions) (2019).
beabadoobee is Beatrice Kristi Laus, a 19 year-old singer-songwriter who was born in the Phillipines and lives in London. She has released some six EPs since 2018 and has been played on the radio on WXPN. I see she’s also headlining a small tour over here in the Spring.
This EP is an acoustic version of her Loveworm EP. I actually don’t know the other EP (that’s for tomorrow), but I wanted to start with this bedroom version because it promised to be stark.
It is just her on acoustic guitar and vocals. Her voice is soft and delicate and quite pretty, with the “innocence” of early Juliana Hatfield. That innocence makes her sharp lyrics all the more effective.
Even though this is a bedroom recording, it is in no way lo-fi. The recording quality is excellent. You can hear her hands move up and down the strings and there’s no hiss or fuzz. You can hear her voice very clearly too.
“Disappear” has a simple melody. I assume the guitar is looped at some point. “1999” is not a Prince cover. It continues in this quiet vein with some pretty guitar and vocals. It seems kind of daring to name a song the same as one of the most popular songs in pop history. But her understated take on 1999 is a quite different from Prince’s
You said I fucked up and ruined your life
But little did you know you ruined
Mine
“Apple Cider” is a bit more uptempo. with a cool delivery of this opening verse
We both like apple cider
But your hair be smelling like fruit punch
And I don’t even like you that much
Wait
I do
Fuck
“Ceilings” has a very pretty picked melody” while “Angel” is a darker song that sounds like it could be a Nirvana cover (it isn’t). “You Lie All the Time” is a straightforward song and “Soren” features some interesting chords high on the neck of the guitar. This final song is a sweet love letter
The green in your eyes
Are like the leaves in the summer
And it changes with the weather
The pink in your cheeks
When you slightly lose your temper
Makes me love you even more
There’s a lot of sameness on this EP, but that’s not surprising since it is an EP of acoustic versions of the he original album. As an introduction to her music and her songwriting, though, it’s a great place to see just what she’s got vocally and musically. I’m curious how she will flesh these songs out on the actual EP.
[READ: January 12, 2020] “Found Wanting”
This is a story of Scottish young adult trying to find his sexuality in a land that demonizes homosexuality: “living on a Glaswegian housing scheme and being gay was a death sentence.” The narrator was more or less alone. He lived in a rented bedsit. His mother was recently dead and his brother, who had been looking after him, could no longer afford to.
The advent of a lonely hearts section in the paper allowed for people with similar interests to contact each other. For the narrator, the day he mailed in his ad (which cost him much of his salary that week), opened up new avenues–avenues that were not always savory. Continue Reading »
Posted in Beabadoobee, Culture Shock, Douglas Stuart, Juliana Hatfield, LGBTQ, New Yorker, Nirvana, Scotland, Sex, Short Story | Leave a Comment »
January 12, 2020 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: ORQUESTA AKOKÁN-“Mambo Rapidito” (2019).
Since this story is about something shameful in Cuba, I thought I’d tie it to something that is wonderful in Cuba: Orquesta Akokán
Orquesta Akokán is a band comprised of Cuban musicians and “Latin music freaks” from New York. They play the kind of Cuban music that filled New York nightclubs in the 1940s and 1950s. As their website explains:
Robust, time-tested musical architectures of son cubano and mambo are honored and modernized through a synthesis of the rich compositional styles of Havana, New York, and beyond.
This song begins with a descending piano riff that quickly gives way to horn hits and a cowbell that doesn’t stop for the whole three minutes.
The main melody comes in as a swinging, wholly danceable riff with shouted refrains of “baile!”
Then lead vocalist José “Pepito” Gómez shows where the rapidito comes in as he sings an insanely fast vocal part ( I wouldn’t even guess what he’s saying).
The song is fun and swinging and should make everyone want to baile!
Then comes an awesome flute solo. There’s a cool swinging instrumental sections in the middle before the call and response of the backing vocalists and Pepito.
Then a wild and cacophonous piano solo sprinkles the end of the song. It is a ton of fun. The NPR blurb says that
when globalFEST decided to host this year’s edition at New York’s Copacabana nightclub — a venue with a history that stretches back nearly 80 years and boasts a long association with Latin music — the festival’s organizers decided that Akokán had to be the first group they invited this time around.
Mambo!
[READ: December 23, 2019] Guantánamo Kid
This is a story of injustice.
Injustice at the hands of Americans.
Americans should be humiliated and outraged by this injustice.
Injustice that is utterly horrific to behold–and I suspect that this graphic novel holds back a lot of the really unpleasant details to make it readable.
This is the story of Mohammed El-Gharani, an innocent kid who was sent to Guantánamo Bay for seven years.
At the age of 14, Mohammed El-Gharani made money in the streets of Medina, Saudi Arabia. His family was from Chad and, as such, he was treated like an outsider in Saudi Arabia. He wasn’t allowed to go to school and the locals treated him badly. He and his friend knew this was no way to make a living.
One day his friend told him that if he went to Pakistan he could learn how to fix computers. He even knew people there who would put him up while he studied. Continue Reading »
Posted in Airplanes, Alexandre Franc, Barack Obama, Chad, Edward Gauvin, Graphic Novel, Injustice, Jérôme Tubiana, Liars, Morality, Non-fiction, Orquesta Akokán, Pakistan, Prison, Saudi Arabia, Sexual Assault, Threats, Toilets, Torture, Translation, Violence | Leave a Comment »
January 11, 2020 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: NEIL PEART-September 12, 1952-January 7, 2020.
When I was in high school, Rush was my favorite band, hands down. I listened to them all the time. I made tapes of all of their songs in alphabetical order and would listen to them straight through.
I still loved them in college, but a little less so as my tastes broadened. But every new release was something special.
It’s frankly astonishing that I didn’t seem them live until 1990. There were shows somewhat nearby when I was in college, but I never wanted to travel too far on a school night (nerd!).
For a band I loved so much, it’s also odd that I’ve only seen them live 5 times. However, their live shows are pretty consistent. They play the same set every night of a tour (as I found out when I saw them two nights apart), and there wasn’t much that set each show apart–although They did start making their shows more and more fun as the years went on, though).
One constant was always Neil Peart’s drum solo. It too was similar every night. Although I suspect that there was a lot more going on than I was a ware of. It was also easy to forget just how incredible these solos were. Sure it was fun when he started adding synth pads and playing music instead of just drums, but even before that his drumming was, of course, amazing.
It was easy to lose sight of that because I had always taken it for granted.
I am happy to have seen Rush on their final tour. I am sad to hear of Neil’s passing. I would have been devastated had it happened twenty years ago, but now I am more devastated for his family.
So here’s two (of dozens) memorials. The first one is from the CBC. They included a mashup of some of Neil’s best drum solos:
But what better way to remember the drum master than with a supercut of his drum solos? From a 2004 performance of “Der Trommler” in Frankfurt, Germany, to a 2011 performance on The Late Show With David Letterman, to his first-ever recorded drum solo (in 1974 in Cleveland, Ohio), dive into nearly five minutes of Peart’s epic drum solos, below.
The best Neil Peart drum solos of all time.
I was only going to include this link, because it was a good summary, then I saw that Pitchfork ranked five of Neil’s best drum solos (an impossible task, really). But it is nice to have them all in one place.
You can find that link here.
Starting in the 1980s Neil’s solos were given a name (which shows that they were pretty much the same every night). Although as I understand it, the framework was the same but the actual hits were improvised each night.
Even after all of these years and hearing these drum solos hundreds of times, watching them still blows my mind.
- “The Rhythm Method”
- “O Baterista”
- “Der Trommler”
- “De Slagwerker,”
- “Moto Perpetuo”
- “Here It Is!”, “Drumbastica,” “The Percussor – (I) Binary Love Theme / (II) Steambanger’s Ball”
[READ: January 2020] Canada 1867-2017
In this book, Paul Taillefer looks at the most historically significant event from each tear of Canadian history. And he tries to convey that event in about a page. Can you imagine learning the history of your country and trying to condense every year into three paragraphs?
And then do it again in French? For this book is also bilingual.
I can’t read French, but i can tell that the French is not a direct translation of the English (or vice versa).
For instance in 1869, the final sentence is:
This, in turn, signaled the start of the Red River Rebellion which would not end until the Battle of Batoche in 1885.
Neither Batoche nor 1885 appears in the entire French write up. So that’s interesting, I suppose. I wonder if the content is very different for French-reading audiences. Continue Reading »
Posted in 19th Century, Abortion, Accents, Activism, Adultery, Adventure, Airlines, Airplanes, Anarchy, Bandits, Barack Obama, Baseball, Big Books, Blizzard, Boats, Bombs, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Consumerism, Daredevils, Death, Depression, Disease, Dreams, Essays, Eulogy, Explorers, Football, Grey Cup, Group of 7, History, Hockey, Inuit, Inventors, John A. Macdonald, Justin Trudeau, Language, Louis Reil, Natural Disasters, Nature, Nazis, Neil Peart, Newspapers, Ocean, Olympics, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Pierre Trudeau, Politicians, Poverty, Power Failure, Preston Manning, Prison, Rush, Stock Market, Swimming, Taxes, Technology, The Future, Thieves, Threats, Toronto, Canada, Translation, Travel, Violence, War, World War I, World War II | Leave a Comment »
January 10, 2020 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: BROWNOUT-Tiny Desk Concert #931 (January 10, 2020).
I’d heard of Brownout when they released Brown Sabbath, a funk covers album of Black Sabbath songs. They have also released an album of Public Enemy covers.
I didn’t realize that they were a long-established band (fifteen years). They originally started as a Latin funk band (and backed up Prince). Their singer, Alex Marrero, has only been with them for four years or so–it was originally a side project that turned into much more.
One of the things you need to know about this band is that they can change traditions or genres almost on a dime. The core members dip into soul, Latin funk, a form of Peruvian cumbia called chicha, and funk covers of both Black Sabbath and Public Enemy.
The first song they play “Somewhere To Go,”
is punctuated by an old-school R&B horn section (Mark “Speedy” Gonzales on trombone and Gilbert Elorreaga on trumpet) that’s deceptively simple and emblematic of the power of their concept and spirit.
The song has a slow groove and starts with a cool bassline from Greg Gonzalez. There’s rocking, distorted guitars and lots of horns. He sings a few lines and then starts singing into a megaphone “paddle your way out of this.”
The next song “Nain” is also new, “with lyrics in Spanish about being different and not fitting in and seeing that as a positive.”
The intricate interplay of the baritone sax (Joshua Levy), guitar (Beto Martinez), bongos (Matthew “Sweet Lou” Holmes) and electronic and acoustic drums (John Speice) launch the second cut, “Nain,” into another down-tempo burner,
I love the way the horns play a simple melody after the first section that sounds a bit like a commercial break in a TV show–waiting for whats to come next. Again the guitar is interesting, playing a few complex patterns while the echoing keyboard solo from Peter Stopschinski adds a trippy aspect to it.
The final song is “You Don’t Have To Fall,” which includes
old-school Tower of Power horns that made quite a few heads dip and hips shake in our corner of the NPR building,
The song has a ripping guitar solo from Beto Martinez’s during which Alex plays a shaker gourd. It’s really catchy.
They seem to be able to do it all.
[READ: January 10, 2020] “The Whale Mother”
Leila’s marriage has fallen apart. She still lives with her husband and kids, but they have both hired lawyers. Her lawyer had told her things were over and she should “Go forth and date.”
So she decided to book a retreat
While on the SeaTac-Whidbey Island Shuttle, the older man in front of her started talking to her. He says he’s lived on the island for more than ten years. When the ferry arrived, he led her upstairs–not waiting for her but assuming she’d be following him. He was married–he wasn’t trying to pick her up–he just seem to enjoy talking to her. Their time on the ferry was a little disappointing to her because she wanted to stay inside in he “sophisticated interior” but he went right through to the deck. Nevertheless, she enjoyed the company and developed a bit of a crush on him.
He asked what her heritage was. This “was the question she would have asked him if such a question weren’t now a minefield. Leila welcomed the question when it came from another brown person but would not have assumed other brown people felt the same way.” Continue Reading »
Posted in Black Sabbath, Boats, Brownout, Feminism, Harper's, Marriage Trouble, Prince, Public Enemy, Short Story, Susan Choi, Tiny Desk Concert, Whales | Leave a Comment »
January 9, 2020 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: BRIDGET KIBBEY-Tiny Desk Concert #930 (January 8, 2020).
I love the harp. Ever since I took a very brief class in grad school (like 4 weeks), where I learned exactly how to play one, I’ve wanted to buy one (that’s an expensive hobby).
Harps are usually thought of as celestial instruments, think “the stereotype of the genteel harp, plucked by angels.”
But the range on the harp is unreal–47 strings! Such highs and lows. And the things usually weigh a ton (not literally, or maybe literally). When I saw Joanna Newsom, I was delighted to see her play a harp from relatively up close.
Now here is Bridget Kibbey.
Kibbey is crazy for the harp. She first heard one at a country church amid the Northwest Ohio cornfields where she grew up. Now she’s the go-to harpist for contemporary composers, some of whom who are writing pieces especially for her.
To be able to watch Kibbey play these pieces up close is breathtaking. She starts with Bach (arr. Kibbey): “Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565.” Yes, that one, the one we all know on the organ. Well, hearing it on the harp is a whole new experience and watching her steamroll through as her fingers fly all over the place is wonderful. You can marvel as she “offers tightly interwoven voices, like gears in a clock, with melodies and rhythms that sparkle.”
She says she transcribed the piece for the harp on a bet. It gives her a chance to explore Baroque counterpoint and the drama of this piece. And does she ever.
The second piece is by the “great living jazz artists Paquito D’Rivera” from Cuba. He plays clarinet and saxophone and wrote “Bandoneon” (arr. Kibbey) for piano, which she transcribed for harp. It is an Argentine tango and is really terrific. I love how she keeps that bass line steady while the high notes fly around the harp.
Kibbey is really fun and boisterous and she’s very excited about her instrument. It’s fun to hear her talk about what she’s going to be playing next.
The final piece is a “little ditty” she grew up singing in the cornfields of Ohio. It’s Bach (arr. Kibbey): “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” from St. Matthew Passion.
I see that she has played Princeton a few times in the past. I sure hope she comes back!
[READ: January 9, 2020] “The Country in the Woman”
This story was published this month in a collection of previously unpublished work.
I don’t believe I’ve read much by Hurston and I was a a little put off that this story is written in partial dialect.
Looka heah Cal’line, you oughta stop dis heah foolishness you got.
But I quickly got over that as I saw what she was doing with the story.
Caroline and her man, Mitchell, are from Florida but they have moved to New York City. The New Yorkers all want Caroline to be more like a New Yorker but they know you can’t get rid of “the country in the woman.” Continue Reading »
Posted in Feminism, Harper's, Joanna Newsom, Johann Sebastian Bach, Marriage Trouble, Paquito D'Rivera, Revenge, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Zora Neale Hurston | Leave a Comment »
January 8, 2020 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: DANIEL NORGREN-Tiny Desk Concert #929 (January 3, 2020).
I feel like I’ve heard of Daniel Norgren, but I really don’t know anything about him. In fact, when I first started playing this Tiny Desk Concert I was surprised at the kind of music this Swedish musician played because it was steeped in American roots music.
Daniel Norgren has been self-releasing his analog recordings for nearly a dozen years. At the Tiny Desk, he and his band sampled music from three different records.
For the first song, “Putting My Tomorrows Behind,” Norgren plays piano. There’s a slow, simple drum beat from Erik Berntsson. And when the chorus comes along, all four sing with gorgeous harmonies. There’s a pretty bluesy guitar solo from Andreas Filipsson.
Throughout the five minutes of this slow song, it feels like a piece of working-class Americana:
I hear myself saying, I’m doing fine
My life is a walk through the pines
But I’m sick and I’m tired, spending my time
Putting my tomorrows behind
The sky is big and white and I’m locked inside
Working all day with a frown
I guess I’m just a coward who would need to get fired
And banished from this town
For “Everything You Know Melts Away Like Snow” Norgren switches from piano to guitar. This simple song runs 6 minutes with minimal lyrics. But it has some lovely backing vocals and an interesting lead vocal melody that seems to go nicely with the guitar lines that are picked out. As he played,
the bluesy Swedish musician kept his eyes tightly shut, as he seemed to tap into old souls to help conjure his tunes. His body sway[ed] and writhe[d] as he and his band create[d] a dream state calming enough to slow the day’s hectic pace to a crawl.
Norgen takes the guitar solo on this song (mostly on the lower strings–a very bluesy kind of solo). You’d swear this song came from an American band from the sixties.
You can’t really hear his Swedish accent (you can hear a fraction of it when he sings) until he introduces the band. I also like that Anders Grahn plays the upright bass as Norgren is talking, giving everything they do a musical feel.
“Moonshine Got Me” is the oldest song he plays–it dates back to his 2011 EP Black Vultures. The title sounds like Americana but the song also is not about “moonshine,” the liquor, it is about the actual moon shining. It’s over ten minutes long and opens with beautiful intertwining guitars–both he and Filipsson play different lines that feel like leads but which keep the melody perfectly. His voice is the most aching on this song.
There’s a lengthy slow jamming middle section, in which both Andreas and Daniel take solos. As the song slows, Daniel moves back to the piano and picks out a quiet melody to bring the song to a close.
[READ: January 6, 2020] “Linda Boström Knausgård’s Post-“Struggle” IKEA Trip“
I don’t usually write about short pieces like this. But this is about an author who I’ve recently read and whose new book I am quite interested in. Plus, Linda Boström Knausgård is the ex-wife of Karl Ove Knausgård and she was written about so much in those books that I feel like I know her (fairly or unfairly).
This piece is, indeed, about Linda Boström Knausgård in an IKEA. She is in New York for a book tour for her new novel Welcome to America.
It’s odd to feel you know things about a person when you have never met them and your only exposure to them is from someone else’s point of view. There’s not a lot that Linda Boström Knausgård can do to get away from what we “know” about her. But this little story does show her to be a bit more upbeat than the way she was left off in the novels.
It also made me laugh that the author of the piece felt the need to explain IKEA as “a notional store from Sweden.” Continue Reading »
Posted in Books about writers, Daniel Norgren, Essays, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Karl Ove Knausgård, Linda Boström Knausgård, New Yorker, Swedish Music, Tiny Desk Concert | 3 Comments »
January 7, 2020 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: SPANGLISH FLY-Tiny Desk Concert #928 (December 31, 2019.
Spanglish Fly is a pretty funny name for a band
Spanglish Fly [is] one of the true pioneers of the boogaloo revival scene happening on the East Coast. For about sixteen minutes, our little corner of the building was the hottest Latin dance club in D.C..
The band (eleven members at the Tiny Desk) combine two styles of music to create a great deal of dancing fun in these three songs.
There is something absolutely infectious about combining the deep groove of an Afro Cuban tumbao bass line with a conga marcha, while the horns answer a call-and-response with the vocalists, all in a confined space.
The first song “Bugalú Pa Mi Abuela” opens with some clapping and that familiar conga style of piano from Kenny Bruno. It’s cool how the music jumps between this style and the grooving bass (including some cool bass slides) from Rich Robles. This song gets you moving right away and has a trombone solo from Ric Becker.
The second song slows things down and is a bit more serious. “Los Niños En La Frontera” has a slow burn of social consciousness. It means “children at the border.” And although the song is more somber, the musical is style rich and vibrant. It opens with shakers from Paula Winter and cymbals and timbales from Arei Sekiguchi. Then the piano jumps in with a call and response from the horns. In addition to a lead baritone saxophone line from Stefan Zeniuk, there’s also Matt Thomas on tenor saxophone and Jonathan Goldman on trumpet.
I haven’t mentioned the vocals yet because it’s in this song that both singers really demonstrate their power. Jessenia Cuesta sings lead first but in the end Mariella Price takes over and sings a different, faster more intense style. Their voices work together really well. And as the song ends, Jessenia holds an impressively long note.
The final song is “a song about shoes.”
The horn ensemble work that drives “Boogaloo Shoes” is worthy of the song’s title, a name taken from the classic dance form that drove East Coast teens crazy in the 1960s. The percussion immediately causes hips to sway.
This song is sung in English and features some more of that great piano and even some yips and yells from the singers. The chorus has a couple of really fun moments when Dylan Blanchard on the congas and Arei do fast drum fills. Matt Thomas takes a pretty lengthy solo on tenor sax and the end features a spoken word in which Mariella tells us that they are putting the “you” in zapata boogaloo. Jessenia Cuesta ends the song with one more great vocal turn.
It’s a really fun set and if your body is not moving during it, you must be dead.
[READ: January 6, 2020] “The Strangeness of Grief”
Recently, Michael Chabon wrote an essay about his somewhat ambivalent feelings about the death of his father. Now it is V.S Naipaul’s turn to discuss this as well.
Naipaul’s father was forty-five or forty-six when he had a heart attack. He was working for the Trinidad Guardian while V.S. was at school in Oxford.
Although his father was to receive half pay, he seemed unconcerned about the state of the family finances. Indeed, the episode seemed to leave him with a lightness of spirit. So he began writing comic short stories. They were quite successful. The BBC even asked V.S to read one of the stories in the “Caribbean Voices” program. The amount they were going to pay him would be the amount it would cost for him to get to London from Oxford. But when he told his father about the expense, his father decided to buy him a gift to show his appreciation. Continue Reading »
Posted in Cats, Death, Essays, Michael Chabon, Spanglish Fly, Tiny Desk Concert, Trinidad Guardian, V.S. Naipaul | Leave a Comment »
January 6, 2020 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: Bob Boilen’s Favorite Tiny Desk Concerts of 2019.
For 2020, I intend to put more albums in my Soundtrack section. But it’s amazing how time consuming that can be.
Nevertheless, I’ll always be posting about Tiny Desk Concerts because I watch all of them. So I’ll start 2020 with Bob Boilen’s favorite Tiny Desk Concerts of 2019.
It amuses me that Bob Boilen and I often share very similar tastes in music, but our favorite things are usually quite different.
When we first started filming musicians playing behind the Tiny Desk in April 2008, the beauty was in the intimacy and simplicity of these concerts. Now into our 11th year, after more than 900 Tiny Desks, the other treasure I find in these concerts is the variety. I remember having the cast of Sesame Street here in May, with NPR parents and their children seated on the floor watching the Muppets. The following Monday we had the blood red-faced raging of Idles, climbing all over the desk and singing “I’m Scum.” The scope of music is invigorating, especially considering a world of listening where we can not only get comfortable with what we love, but where the quantity of music from any particular genre could keep us happy all year. Tiny Desk concerts are here to shake up your tastes a little and help you stretch your ears and discover something you never knew existed or convert you to something you never thought you’d like. Here are 10 great examples of that magic from 2019.
I don’t have a list of favoirtes, but I will make some observations about Bob’s.
Bob seems to really like bands who put their names in all caps. Also bands who have a number (specifically 47) attached to their letters.
Quinn was the Tiny Desk Contest winner. Sesame Street is pretty iconic. Taylor Swift is something of a surprise, but was clearly the biggest name they’ve ever had. And yet, Lizzo’s Tiny Desk has twice as many views as Taylor Swift’s (5 million to 2.5 million!).
Looking forward to their 1,000th show later this year. I wonder who it will be.
[READ: January 6, 2020] “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain”
This was a great short story about playing a video game.
For decades, the video game industry has been releasing video games in which a protagonist kills people from other countries. Since I don’t play these games, I never really thought about what it would be like to be from that country and to play those games.
Surely people from all around the world like to play video games, and they probably want to play the popular ones as well.
In this story an an Afghani-American kid, Zoya, who works at Taco Bell has saved up all of his money (the money that he doesn’t give to his out of work father) to buy the final game in the Metal Gear series. He has been playing this series which has becomes “so fundamentally a part of your childhood that often, when you hear the Irish Gaelic chorus from “The Best is Yet to Come” you cannot help weeping softly into your keyboard.” Continue Reading »
Posted in 47Soul, All Songs Considered, Bob Boilen, CHAI, Death, Ensemble Signal, Idles, Jamil Jan Kochai, Leikeli47, Lizzo, Metal Gear Solid V, MF Doom, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Parenting, Quinn Christopherson, Racism, Sesame Street, Short Story, Taylor Swift, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest, Video Games, Violence | Leave a Comment »
January 5, 2020 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: JANN ARDEN-“Leave the Light On” (2018).
Jann Arden is a Canadian singer-songwriter who I know pretty much exclusively from her 1994 song “Insensitive.” Arden has also made numerous media appearances over the years, including showing up on Corner Gas, Robson Arms and other shows that I haven’t seen. She also appeared extensively on Rick Mercer Report (I found out by reading the book).
“Insensitive” is a slow song with a bit of mid-90s production. The melody is catchy and the lyrics are great:
Oh, I really should have known
By the time you drove me home
By the vagueness in your eyes, your casual goodbyes
By the chill in your embrace
The expression on your face, told me
Maybe, you might have some advice to give
On how to be insensitive, insensitive, ooh, insensitive
Now, nearly 25 years later, Arden has other things on her mind. I don’t know much about Arden, but evidently both of her parents suffered significant health problems in the last decade. Her father passed and shortly after that her mother began a battle with Alzheimer’s as well.
“Leave the Light On” is a beautiful song about her mother.
A slow piano opens before Arden starts singing–her voice sounds wonderful–powerful and exposed.
I never pictured life
Alone in a house
Surrounded by trees
That you’d forget yourself
Lose track of time
Not recognize me
The bridge comes in with a harmony voice that shows even more pain.
Then the chorus kicks in and a song that could be maudlin or easily schmaltzy goes in exactly the right place to prevent that. It shouts a sense of optimism that’s the only way people can keep going sometimes
A four note melody picks up the pace and uses a perfect parenthetical voice (the first voice is quieter, almost internal)
(Out of the dark)
I leave the light on
(In through the cold)
I leave the light on now
(Safe from the night)
I keep my eye on the road
(Good for the soul)
For when you come home to me
What is so compelling about the song is how musically understated it is. While it could go big and heartbreaky with strings and over the tops effects, it stays quiet with the piano and a quiet electric guitar playing a melody deep in the background. And really once the drums kick in, it’s almost like the drums are the only instrument–like Arden’s voice is the melody and the piano and guitar are there purely as support.
There’s a short bit near the end of the song that is a real gut punch though. After a short guitar solo, she sings following the guitar, “do you know my name, do you know my name?”
Dang. It’s a starkly beautiful song.
It also showcases what a great songwriter she is because she is apparently a truly fun person to hang out (according to Rick Mercer).
[READ: December 2019] Rick Mercer Final Report
I read The Mercer Report: The Book over ten years ago. I had been a fan of Rick Mercer Report on Canadian TV (we used to be able to get Canadian satellite down here). As an introduction to that book I wrote
Rick Mercer is a great political comedian. He puts all American political commentators to shame. I’m sure that much of this difference is the way Canada is structured. There seems to be so much more access to politicians there than in our system. While politicians do appear on our TV shows, on the Mercer Report, Rick goes white-water rafting with the head of the Liberal party. Rick has a sleepover at the Prime Minister’s house. For reasons I can’t fathom, all of these politicians agree to hang out with Rick even though in the next segment he will rant about their incompetence.
It’s these rants that were a highlight of his show. Every episode, he would stand in an alley and go off for 90 some seconds about the issue of the week. His rants are astute, funny, and right on the mark. He takes aim at all sides by ranting against incompetence and hypocrisy. The only disappointing thing is that since this book covers the lifetime of the show and some of the topics have appeared multiple times, I guess it shows that his rants didn’t accomplish their goals. But they made us feel better, anyhow.
The book is organized in reverse chronological order, with the final rants (April 3, 2018) coming first.
Topics in the final year included how run down the Prime Minister’s residence is. Justin Trudeau said “The place is filled with mould and lead–I’m not raising my children there. Typical Liberal.” Also payday loan sharks; the Paralympics (Mercer was a huge supporter) and technology. Continue Reading »
Posted in Barack Obama, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Corner Gas, Corporate skewering, Dip-in Books, donald tRUMP, Drugs, End of the World, Environmentalism, Essays, Etiquette, Fears, Feminism, Funny (ha ha), Gord Downie, Jann Arden, Justin Trudeau, Mercer Report, Olympics, Paralympics, Pierre Berton, Political Humor, Politicians, Rick Mercer, Robson Arms, Sports, Stephen Harper | Leave a Comment »
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SOUNDTRACK: beabadoobee-Loveworm (2019).
beabadoobee is Beatrice Kristi Laus, a 19 year-old singer-songwriter who was born in the Phillipines and lives in London. She has released some six EPs since 2018 and has been played on the radio on WXPN. I see she’s also headlining a small tour over here in the Spring.
I Just Read About That... 