Feeds:
Posts
Comments

[ATTENDED: September 8, 2019] Uniform

Uniform is a duo from New York.  But for this tour that had a live drummer Michael A. Engle (from Crawl).  The main two guys in the band are former Drunkdriver singer Michael Berdan and recording engineer Ben Greenberg (formerly of the Men) on guitar and other sounds.

I looked them up before the show to see who they were and the general impression I got was that they were loud.

So when the band walked on stage, I said to the guy next to me, “time for earplugs.”  And before I could put the second one in, Berdan pressed a button on a machine behind him and out blasted the single loudest sound I’ve ever heard.  Granted, I was standing literally right in front of the massive cabinet that the sound came from, but holy crap.  I assumed it was some kind of accidental feedback.  But indeed, no, that was the opening sound of the band.

And it never let up. Continue Reading »

SOUNDTRACK: EATING OUT-Burn 7″ (2013).

Orville Peck has been getting a lot of attention lately.  In his act, he is a masked cowboy and his identity was (for a time) unknown.

It was fairly recently revealed that Orville Peck is actually Canadian musician Daniel Pitout (those tattoos will always give it away).

Pitout is in a couple of bands including Eating Out and Nü Sensae.

Eating Out plays a noisy grunge.  They have a bunch of one-song singles on bandcamp and this 7″ collects three of them.

Pitout is the singer (and he sounds NOTHING like Orville Peck).  I’ve felt like Orville Peck is a joke character because of the insane way he sings.  Hearing this, I’m evening more convinced of it.  But I’m glad he’s in on it.

“Burn” opens with a clean guitar intro followed by the biggest most distorted guitar around.  It’s certainly grunge and not metal and it runs through the verse and chorus.  The middle reintroduces the opening guitar riff and then the big distortion returns.  The song ends with that same clean guitar–it’s reall catchy–before crashing to a conclusion.

“Come Around” has two lead guitars (nicely fuzzed out) and a big fuzzy sound.  The sound reminds me of an updated version of SST bands.

“That’s My Man” closes the 7″ with a quiet intro.  Echoed vocals and a simple guitar melody.  It’s a poppy, almost do-wop melody with a bit of reverb drenched over the whole thing.  The song doesn’t change much, it just gets bigger as it goes along.  It’s probably the least interesting of the three, but it certainly shows Pitout looking to stretch beyond punk and grunge way back in 2013.

[READ: September 2, 2019] “To-Do”

This is a story about feminism, sex, and a woman’s relationship with her mother.

Constance is in front of a crowd of women at Antler’s Bar for Storytelling Wednesday.

She is telling them that her mother had been a beauty.  She had gotten a degree and was successful in a typing pool in New York City.  Although her boss told her that she had to cut her long hair and adopt the stylish updo of the time.  When she refused, her boss called her hysterical.  I can imagine her telling the audience: Do you know the origin of the word hysterical is the belief that the uterus could reach up through the body and and grip the throat.

The women in the audience seem agitated and bored.  Constance tries to win them over by reciting her mother’s to-do list, something she found in her mother’s effects after she died.

She tries to convince them of the significance of post its and to do lists in a woman’s life.

None of the women see it. Continue Reading »

[ATTENDED: September 7, 2019] Fontaines D.C.

I had heard of Fontaines D.C. from NPR.  They raved about the band’s live show.   I was pretty exited to get to see them in a small place like Johnny Brenda’s.  Then I was really quite surprised that they sold out.  I feel like a lot of times bands that I think have a lot of buzz either don’t or don’t have it in Philly.

But it was sold out and the crowd knew the band really well (much better than I did).

When Pottery went off stage, the floor cleared out a bit and I got a great spot right up front.

Then they turned on these awful blue lights.  Was that the band’s decision?  Why were they like that for the whole show?  Who thought that wa sa good look for anyone?  But I didn’t really care because I was ready to hear this legendary (already) band.

They are an interesting band to be sure.  Many (but not all) of their songs are fast.  But all of their songs feature lead vocalist Grian Chatten speak-singing ala Art Brut but with a Dublin accent.  On stage Chatten is something of a caged tiger, walking around grabbing the mic stand, lurching, looking distracted or pissed off.  And then he bursts out his vocals.  Continue Reading »

[ATTENDED: September 7, 2019] Pottery

After cutting it so close last night for the Joanna Newsom show, I made sure to leave plenty early for this sold out show.

A few months ago, Route 95 was closed at Girard Avenue.  For TWO YEARS.

So the ease of getting to Johnny Brenda’s has been removed.  They are also doing a lot of other road constructions in the neighborhood.  Which meant it was impossible to find a parking space.  I drove around for nearly 30 minutes before finding a spot in a neighborhood I’ve ever been to before. By the time I arrived for the show, Pottery had already started.  I don’t know how much I missed, but I am bummed I did because e I really enjoyed them a lot.  [Judging by other setlists, I suspect I walked in during the first song, but I’m not sure].

Nevertheless, I did get to hear a solid 30 minutes of their set. Continue Reading »

SOUNDTRACK: FRENCH, FRITH, KAISER, THOMPSON-“Bird in God’s Garden/Lost and Found” (1987).

The words are a poem by Rumi.   It is a slow droney song that is primarily drums from John French.  Thompson sings in his quieter style.

There are several different versions of this song. There’s an earlier unreleased version with Richard & Linda Thompson that is much quieter.  I especially like this version because after every other verse they brighten things up with a dramatic five note string riff (or maybe it’s Kaiser on the sanshin) that seems to come out of nowhere.

They spice up the middle of the song with a rollicking traditional Irish sounding fiddle melody from Fred Frith’s “Lost and Found.”  (Frith plays violin).  It adds a bit of zing to an otherwise dirgey song.

After about three minutes of the slow thumping there’s a wonderfully rocking instrumental section complete with fiddles and bass playing some wild melodies.

It was recorded on the album Live, Love, Larf and Loaf and also appears on Thompson’s collection Watching the Dark (1993).

[READ: September 1, 2019] “Nell Zink’s Satire Raises the Stakes”

I have really enjoyed the Nell Zink books that I’ve read. I’ve even read an excerpt from Doxology, the book that’s reviewed in this essay.

What I like about this essay though is the summations of her writing and her earlier books.

Schwartz says that Zink looks at life from the fringes.  She then summarizes her three impossible to summarize books in simple and amusing fashion: Continue Reading »

[ATTENDED: September 6, 2019] Joanna Newsom

This was scheduled to be a busy concert weekend for me–three days, three shows.

I was glad the first one was a seated, relaxed show of Joanna Newsom playing her harp and piano.  The traffic into Philly was light, until I got into City Center.  I had planned to park on the street (you can find it sometimes), but I wound up driving on a street under construction behind a bus and I watched as the time ticked away.  Finally I grabbed the nearest parking garage and sucked up the $22 fee and then hustled over the theater and managed to get into my seat just as the lights dimmed.  Holy cow.

I had never seen Newsom before, and I suspect that I was quite lucky to see her on this limited run tour because I understand it’s her first solo tour in about 15 years–she’s usually accompanied by… someone else, I guess.  It was also her first tour at all in four years.  She said she was very nervous.  And she did make a few mistakes.  But she was always gracious and self-deprecating about them.  And considering she played about 200,000 notes that night, missing one or two isn’t the end of the world.

She came out to much applause.  I gather that her fan base is pretty intense (the kind who laugh and squeal at any comment the musician makes).  However, unlike other similar fans, these were relatively restrained (it was a rather formal setting after all).  But it was nice to be enveloped in so much mutual love.

The strange thing for me is that I didn’t really know any of her songs before this show.  I knew what she sounded like and I’m sure I’ve heard a song or two somewhere, but I was a Newsom novice.  I just knew it would be an excellent evening.  And so it was.

She came out on stage to thunderous applause.  She had on a beautiful floor-length dress, which–when someone asked her–she said was by California designers Rodarte.  And that they had made four dresses, one for each of her albums. Continue Reading »

SOUNDTRACK: THE ANGELUS-“The Young Birds” (2019).

Every once in a while I like to check in with Viking’s Choice on NPR’s All Songs Considered.  Lars Gottrich specializes in all of the obscure music that you won’t hear on radio.  For this month, he did a special focus on Patient Sounds. a small label based out of Illinois.

[UPDATE: At the end of 2019, Patient Sounds closed shop. I’m not sure if any of these songs are available outside of Bandcamp].

Lars had this to say about the label

Matthew Sage, who runs the label, knows that dynamic drone, jittery footwork, oddball drone-folk, hypnagogic guitar music and cosmic Americana can exist in the same space.

The second song of the week is by The Angelus.  Lars describes the song:

Redemption often comes at the hands of something bigger than yourself, but as The Angelus’ soul-rattling doom-gaze reminds us, the love of young children will make you humble.

This song starts with crashing heavy chords–cymbals and loud guitars.  But then it settles down to a groovy death riff.  The surprise to me was when the singer began singing.  He has a soft melodic voice which totally changes this from a heavy dark song into a kind of melodic slow heavy song.  The chorus is surprisingly heavy and even ends on a kind of positive mood.

[READ: September 1, 2019] “Class Picture”

This story surprised me because it started

Robert Frost made his visit in November of 1960, just a week after the general election.  It tells you something about our school that the prospect of his arrival cooked up more interest than the contest between Nixon and Kennedy.

If Nixon had been at their school, they would have glued his shoes to the floor.

This is quite a lengthy story and there are a lot of components.  Wolff fleshes out this school very well.  So well, in fact, that I could see this being developed into a novel [It is actually an excerpt from a novel]. Although for the purposes of this story, the plot is dealt with fully.

It also makes me wonder if such a school could actually exist.  Certainly not in 2020, but even in 1960?  Because this school exhibited pride in being a literary institution. Glamorous writers visited three times a year and the English masters carried themselves as if they were intimates of Hemingway.  The teachers of other subjects (math, science) seemed to float around the fringe of the English masters’ circle.

The tradition at the school was that one boy would be chosen to meet the famous author who was coming next.  This year it is Robert Frost.  Each boy would submit an entry (in the case of Frost it would be poetry).  The author himself would select the winner.  And these meetings were a big deal to everyone on campus.

The narrator is very excited but he knows that his poems are subpar–he writes fiction.  He was on the school’s literary magazine board so he was familiar with the other great writers in his class.  There were three.

George Kellogg was a proficient writer of poetry, although the narrator found the boring.

Bill White was the narrator’s roommate.  He’d written most of a novel already and his poems were impressive.

Jeff Purcell was the third.  He was also on the literary magazine and was quick to dismiss others.  Could that translate to his own writing?

The one detour from the poetry angle is about smoking.  The school forbade smoking but a lot of boys did anyway.  The narrator said he loved smoking.  He smoked in storage closets and freezers, steam tunnels and bathrooms.  He even went out for cross-country so he could smoke while running in the woods.

If you were caught smoking you were expelled.  It happened every once in awhile.  A person was sent home just before the Frost Poem deadline.  This made the narrator quit smoking on campus.

The narrator wrote a poem for the occasion but he didn’t think it was good enough.  So he decided to submit an older one on the off chance that Frost liked it.

I won’t spoil the winner, but Frost did come to the school and he read some of his poems aloud.  During the Q&A that followed a master asked a question.  Interestingly he misstated the title of the poem.  He called it “Stopping in Woods” which Frost corrected instantly to “Stopping by Woods on a  Snowy Evening”  The master continued the question asking about iambic lines  Frost says “Good for you, they must be teaching you boys something here.”

The boys all laughed and Frost seemed pleased–had he made a mistake about the master or had he known all along?  The boys were surprised to learn later that Frost was quite funny.

The end of the story shows the winner of the contest questioning the value of his poem.  He felt that Frost mis-read it and that perhaps he won for the wrong reasons.  Should he blow off Robert Frost?  Is he crazy?

I really enjoyed this piece and found myself thoroughly engaged.  If this is part of a novel, I would be very curious to read it.  Turns out it is an excerpt from the novel Old School.

SOUNDTRACK: DEATHPROD-“Disappearance / Reappearance” (2019).

Every once in a while I like to check in with Viking’s Choice on NPR’s All Songs Considered.  Lars Gottrich specializes in all of the obscure music that you won;t hear on radio.  For this month, he did a special focus on Patient Sounds. a small label based out of Illinois.

[UPDATE: At the end of 2019, Patient Sounds closed shop. I’m not sure if any of these songs are available outside of Bandcamp].

Lars had this to say about the label

Matthew Sage, who runs the label, knows that dynamic drone, jittery footwork, oddball drone-folk, hypnagogic guitar music and cosmic Americana can exist in the same space.

The first song is by Deathprod.  Lars says:

Deathprod’s first album in 15 years, Occulting Disk, smothers dank, dark drones around the void of your soul, like a frozen hug from a cyborg teddy bear.

This song is 8 minutes long.  It consists almost entirely of a single loud distorted note/chord played on a synth until it fades into distorted crackles.  The note changes, but it is a pretty ominous soundtrack, like the slowest monster approaching you.

[READ: September 2, 2019] Blackbird

This book starts out with a very realistic concern but quickly become supernatural.

Nina was 13 years old and had a vision of an earthquake coming.  Her sister just called her a crazy baby (something the whole family called her). But moments later, the Verdugo Earthquake happened.  She and her family fled, and were almost crushed by a collapsing bridge.

But then a beautiful celestial monster came down and fixed the bridge and saved them.  The creature cast a forgetting spell over everyone, but somehow Nina remembered it all.

Despite the magical creature’s help, Nina’s life went to hell from there.  Her mother and father began fighting.  He began drinking and she died in a car accident while trying to get away from him.  Nina had been a great student but high school became unbearable.  She became “the girl who talked about magic and wizards and paragons.”

Now as an adult, she has a dead end job at a bar, is living with her sister and is sneaking painkillers.

There’s a guy, Clint, who seems to be stalking her at the bar.  I mean, he’s cute, but he’s always there. Continue Reading »

SOUNDTRACK: NICOLE BUS-Tiny Desk Concert #882 (August 21, 2019).

Nicole Bus is from Amsterdam.  Everything about her makes it seem like she has been around for a while.  Her style of music, her raspy voice (which makes her sound older than she is) and her choice of instrumentation (the horns and flute melodies sound old school).  But she is an emerging artist:

Nicole Bus’ sound is nostalgic. It’s reminiscent of vintage R&B, yet still feels current, and can transcend age and demographics.

Her style is R&B, but her singing style is far more reggae influenced.  It’s really fascinating.  The first song, “You,” opens with spooky piano from Eugene “Man Man” Roberts and slow horns from Chris Stevens (trumpet) and Aaron Goode (trombone). I love the addition of the flutes from Korey Riker.  More and more I can’t get over how good flutes sound in rock.  Her delivery is quite reggae until she lets out with her powerful raspy voice.  The song is really catchy.

Nicole followed by premiering a new song about women’s empowerment, “Love It.”  Drummer Mark Thomas starts with drums and then switches to hand drums.  Anthony DeCarlo adds acoustic guitar while Jasmine Patton sing high note backing vocals.  I love in the middle of the song when Eugene “Man Man” Roberts play a very 70s-sounding fill on the keyboards.  Riker adds more great flutes.

She ends the set

with “Mr. Big Shot,” an up-tempo banger mixing high-energy rhythms with ragga-influenced vocals.

Nicole plays acoustic guitar and there’s a cool, catchy four note bass riff from Ray Bernard that propels the song along.  Lamarcus Eldridge joins Patton for some great backing vocals.  This melody has been stuck in my head for days now.

I’d never heard of Nicole Bus, but I really enjoyed her set and her energy.

[READ: September 1, 2019] Paper Girls

This book turned out to be so much more interesting than I imagined.

The title was strangely puzzling and the cover had a kind of 1980s look to it.

It didn’t occur to me that “paper girls” meant newspaper delivery girls.

It’s coincidental that this book starts out with the main character, Erin, getting up at 4:40 to deliver papers since that’s almost exactly the same way as Middlewest in which Abel gets up at 4:30 to deliver papers.

Anyhow this story is quite different form that one because it has a cool feminist attitude, although it is also supernatural.

It begins with Erin asleep and dreaming of Christa McAuliffe in heaven.  Then she wakes up at 4:40 and gets ready to deliver the Cleveland Preserver.  It’s also November 1 (1988) as evidenced by The Far Side calendar (nice touch). The calendar has “hell morning” written on it.

Why?  Because at 4:40 on the morning after Halloween there are still hooligans roaming the streets.  One dressed as Freddy Krueger harasses Erin immediately.  But while he is giving Erin a hard time, three girls pull up on bikes and harass right back.  One girl uses some very inappropriate language which Erin (who goes to Catholic school) chastises her for.  The girl, Mac, waits for a thank you. Continue Reading »

SOUNDTRACK: TOBE NWIGWE-Tiny Desk Concert #881 (August 19, 2019).

Tobe Nwigwe is the leader, but he shares the spotlight with his backing vocalists all of whom take lead vocal spots at some point.

The thing I like best about this set is that they are all wearing T shirts that say “My First Tiny Desk.”

There’s a wide array of sounds on this Tiny Desk too, from delicate R&B to some abrasive rapping.  I like the abrasive rapping a lot more–he has terrific delivery in that part.

Tobe’s performance was a five-song medley sandwiched effortlessly into a 15-minute block. Launching with “Houston Tribute,” he used clever and evocative wordplay to rap about coming of age in the South. Accented almost hypnotically by a trio of harmonies provided by background vocalists Luke Whitney, David Michael Wyatt and Madeline Edwards, Tobe’s mindful words are like a life hack for those seeking guidance.

The song has a gentle melody with delicate keys from Nic Humes.  The song is a rap, but a soft one.  He speaks quickly but the rhymes are positive and amusing.

My flow a monastery for them extra poor people
That don’t get commentary and get honored rarely
For the guava jelly they produce even though they get thrown fecal
Matter on a platter made by they oppressor
I shatter all the chatter that seem to make us lesser

After about two minutes Lucius Hoskins kicks in some guitar licks.  Then Devin Caldwell throws in some cool deep bass sounds making the song sound very full.

Tobe’s wife, Fat, known for her striking beauty and lead role in the magnificently directed music videos that have paved the way to Tobe’s rapid growth on Instagram. And through it all, young Baby Fat sat silently in her mom’s arms, absorbing the spiritual energy of her dad’s music.

After the song he says, “That’s how you do it June 24” (So it took two months for this to air).  Then he says “Lets teach ’em why the caged bird sings.  “Caged Bird” opens with Aldarian Mayes playing some simple drum thumping before Tobe starts rapping.

LaNell “NELL” Grant gets a lead rap mid song then after another chorus, Luke Whitney takes a high falsetto verse followed by an even higher falsetto from David Michael Wyatt.

Up next is “Against the Grain.”  Madeline Edwards takes the first lead vocal, but Ii love this song for the great raw sound of the bass and guitar and Tobe’s growling rapping delivery.

Aight, I feel like the masses on melatonin when it come to melanin
I grew up melancholy ’cause I ain’t realize that the hemoglobin in my skin
Was connected to a lineage that never ever had to penny pinch

That sound is unlike anything else in the set, although it does segue into “Shine” with more lead vocals from Madeleine.

Throughout the set he offered pleas for listeners to look past inherent hardships and evil and to keep their eyes on the prize, while he reflected on his own decision to go against his Nigerian roots and parental expectations to pursue his dreams of being a rapper.

He is very funny and says, “I’m Nigerian I know a lot of y’all though I was regular black”  For Nigerian parents, if their children haven’t done one of three things they’ve wasted their lives: become a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer.  So you can imagine when I told my mom that I wanted to be a rapper. She said (in maternal Nigerian accent) Tobe, why are you such a parasite to my life?  Tobe, why do you love poverty so much? Tobe, why re you trying to kill me?

Legends like Dave Chapelle and Erykah Badu were telling me I was dope which is what  “I’m Dope” is about.  David Michael Wyatt sings an impressive falsetto and the song actually does mention that Chapelle and Badu said he was dope.

The credits also cite Igbo Masquerade: art.  I’m not sure what that’s a reference to.

[READ: September 1, 2019] Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Comic

I couldn’t imagine how this comic book would work with the premise of Mystery Science Theater 3000’s movie riffing.  But Joel Hodgson had an idea and it works wonderfully.

The Mads up on the dark side of the moon are still tormenting a guy up on the Satellite of Love.

This book is Netflix-era, so the Mads are now represented by Kinga, Synthia, TV’s Son of TV’s Frank (Max) and the Boneheads.  And joining Crow, Tom Servo and Gypsy on the SOL are Jonah and two small robot creatures that I didn’t recognize (I haven’t watches the Netflix episodes).

I absolutely hate the way Todd Nauck draws the host segments. I can’t stand the mouth designs on anyone, especially Kinga.  They all look like the Joker (is that because this is from Dark Knight comics?) and are horrifying.

But once you get past the art design of the host segments, the premise is pretty great.  Synthia has designed a machine The Bubbulat-r which allows a person to enter a comic book.  They test it out on Max and his favorite book Funny Animals.  Max jumps in as a rabbit can talk to the other characters.

The book explains that there’s a little bubble at the bottom of the word balloon to indicate a line that has been added and is not a line from the actual book.

But when Max comes back he tells us that the cute little bunny is in fact four feet tall with powerful sinewy limbs and reeks of a bizarre musk.

But the key point is that that Kinga has invented a way to do movie riffing from inside the comic.  So Kinga sends them comics and our heroes are inserted into different books. Continue Reading »