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Tame Impala (The Mann Center for Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, August 23, 2019)

August 23, 2019 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: August 23, 2019] Tame Impala

I’ve liked Tame Impala since they first came out back in 2010.  I more or less pit them in a category with Dungen because of the jamming psychedelic sound and high-pitched vocals. I really enjoyed Innerspace and thought Lonerism was really good too.

When Kevin Parker (he makes the records himself and then tours with a live band) put out Currents in 2015, I thought it had some great songs and that the cover was quite an iconic and unforgettable image.

Then about a year ago I discovered that Tame Impala are HUGE!   People love them!  They even headlined Coachella.

How did this happen?  Not impugning the band in any way, but they are not a typical pop band.  Nor are they super catchy like Foo Fighters (another improbably popular band).  They’re even from Australia, for crying out loud.  But their fan base in the States is massive.

So I’d had them on my list to see for a while, but in recent years I’ve heard their live show is spectacular.  When I saw they were playing the Mann Center I was sure to get a ticket as close to the stage as possible.   And a couple days before the show it turned out the show sold out–that’s 14,000 people.  Wow. Continue Reading »

Posted in Dungen, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Tame Impala, Velvet Negroni | Leave a Comment »

Andrea Lee–“Interesting Women” (New Yorker, July 17, 2000)

August 23, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS AND HEADY FWENDS-“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” (2012).

2012 saw the release of this very strange collaborative album.  Whether The Flaming Lips had entered the mainstream or if people who’d always liked them were now big stars or maybe they all just liked doing acid.  Whatever the case, The Lips worked with a vast array of famous (and less famous) people for this bizarre album.  Here it is 8 years later. Time to check in.

This is, indeed a cover of Roberta Flack’s song.

It’s not often that a cover is so willfully defiant of the original without actually trying to mess with it.

This is a ponderous, ten-minute version of the song, punctuated by loud, echoing drumbeats keeping a slow pace.  The music is essentially distorted electronic chord changes on the beats and occasional twinkling keyboard notes throughout.

The song is sung in the audio equivalent of soft-focus by Erykah Badu.

It is a hard song to parse. Badu’s voice sounds great.  The contrast to the original music is stark and yet it is sonically more interesting than the treacly original.  On the other hand, it is long and, if the mood is wrong, slow and boring.

It’s a song I thought I would likely skip were I listening to the whole disc, and yet listening to it right now, the 10 minutes went by like nothing.  So maybe it is pretty great after all.

[READ: June 15, 2019] “Interesting Women”

Interesting women–are we ever going to be free of them?

So starts this story of an interesting woman.

She is concerned because all new acquaintances

seem to be gorgeous lesbians or bisexuals whose intoxicating charm fed straight into hot wet tumbles between rented sheets.

The narrator is on holiday with her daughter, Basia, in Thailand.  Their hotel is swimming with interesting women.

The narrator and Basia are kayaking when an interesting woman approaches them.  She is in her fifties, looking good without pushing it.  The woman asks how hard it is and then says that kayaking is on her list of things to do that scare her,  The woman’s name is Silver, well, its one of her real names. Continue Reading »

Posted in Aerosmith, Enemas, Erykah Badu, Funny (ha ha), Rebecca Lee, Short Story, Thailand, The Flaming Lips, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, Yuck! | Leave a Comment »

Terry Moore–Strangers in Paradise XXV #10 (2019)

August 22, 2019 by Paul Debraski

download - 2020-05-20T121917.708SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS AND HEADY FWENDS-“Is David Bowie Dying” (2012).

2012 saw the release of this very strange collaborative album.  Whether The Flaming Lips had entered the mainstream or if people who’d always liked them were now big stars or maybe they all just liked doing acid.  Whatever the case, The Lips worked with a vast array of famous (and less famous) people for this bizarre album.  Here it is 8 years later. Time to check in.

This six minute track starts with scraping and electronic sounds and a two note guitar melody that rise sand falls. Neon Indian, an electronic chillwave band, is the guest on this song

Around 2 minutes the music turns optimistic and soaring and then it  mellows out with trippy sounds. The lyrics change to

At the mountain, you scream
Now the fountain reveals
As you do want and make you whole
Goodbye, goodbye

The mellowness lasts for about a minute then the angular guitars returns.  This second half feels less harsh and more trippy, although the wild effects are still in place.  This sequence runs through to the end as they repeat

Take your legs and run
Into the death-rays of the sun

[READ: August 1, 2019] Strangers in Paradise XXV #10

This limited series ends with this issue.

Katchoo is the voice over as she worries about the five years the earth has left to exist–she will have this hanging over her head as she returns home.

Francine reports that her mother is doing fine–she has the will to be alive to watch her grandchildren grow up.  This, of course, makes Katchoo even sadder.

Back home, the girls are up in the air vent wondering why Aunt Libby is crying.  But she’s not.  It turns out that there is a heavily tattooed man with a gun telling her that he plans to kidnap the two little girls because the dykes who live there have a lot of money and he intends to get the ransom for them. Continue Reading »

Posted in Abstract Studio, Adventure, Completed Series, Death, Egyptology, End of the World, Feminism, Graphic Novel, Lilith, Math, Murder, Neon Indian, Parenting, Supernatural, Terry Moore, The Flaming Lips, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, Violence | Leave a Comment »

Terry Moore–Strangers in Paradise XXV #9 (2018)

August 21, 2019 by Paul Debraski

download - 2020-05-20T121901.285SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS AND HEADY FWENDS-“Do It!” (2012).

2012 saw the release of this very strange collaborative album.  Whether The Flaming Lips had entered the mainstream or if people who’d always liked them were now big stars or maybe they all just liked doing acid.  Whatever the case, The Lips worked with a vast array of famous (and less famous) people for this bizarre album.  Here it is 8 years later. Time to check in.

This three-minute interlude is mostly thumping drums and percussive noises with a repeated sample of someone (I assume Yoko Ono) saying “Do It!”

There’ a grooving bass line.  With all of the attention paid to Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd, it’s easy to overlook how good a bassist Michael Ivins (and has been with Wayne from the beginning).  I assume that’s him playing on this song.

The samples are tinkered with as the bass propels the song forward.  It’s a nifty little transition piece.

[READ: August 1, 2019] Strangers in Paradise XXV #9

The cover image of this issue has nothing whatever to do with the contents.  That is true for many of the issues, but it’s disturbing for this one because it suggest something is going to happen but it’s actually something similar but ultimately very different.

In New England, Katchoo doesn’t want to believe that the woman walking across the snow is Lilith.  She doesn’t want to believe any of this.

They go inside and there’s a cookie jar.  Zoe goes to take one but Lilith says that they are for the raccoon who likes to sneak in at night and pillage my kitchen.
Zoe: “You have a raccoon?”
Lilith: “Not anymore.”

They look at the scroll  Rachel reads it “This is how he did it and this is how you undo it”  Then she looks at Lilith and snarls, “Why did you write this?”

Zoe asks He who?  Jet say they’re talking about God an how to blow us all kingdom come. Continue Reading »

Posted in Abstract Studio, Adventure, Death, Egyptology, End of the World, Feminism, Graphic Novel, Lilith, Math, Murder, Parenting, Supernatural, Terry Moore, The Flaming Lips, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, Unfinished series, Violence, Yoko Ono | Leave a Comment »

Beck (PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ, August 20, 2019)

August 20, 2019 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: July 28, 2014] Beck

It was five years ago that S. and I saw Beck live.

For that show, I went in with lowered expectations.  I thought the show was going to be a lot of Morning Phase, a mellow album he had just released, but it turned out to be a ton of fun.  S. remembers it as one of her favorite concerts ever.  So when I saw that he was touring and coming to Holmdel, I was excited to get tickets.

Then I saw how much they were.  Tickets were over $100 for most normal seats and the front section was well over $100.  So there was no way I was getting tickets for that.  Then I remembered the awesome feature at PNC Bank Arts Center.  If there are seats available before the show you can upgrade a lawn seat for $20.  So we bought $30 lawn seats and then a few days before the show, we took advantage of the upgrade and for $20 more, we were moved to Row N!

And Row N is a great vantage point.

Needless to say, our expectations were pretty high for this.  And Beck did not disappoint.  Well, maybe a little. Continue Reading »

Posted in Beck, Cage the Elephant, Elvis Costello, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Holmdel, NJ, Jason Falkner, PNC Bank Center, Roger Manning, Set in New Jersey!, The Korgis | Leave a Comment »

Cage the Elephant (PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ, August 20, 2019) [BECK]

August 20, 2019 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: August 20, 2019] Cage the Elephant

I was rather surprised that Cage the Elephant were co-headlining this tour with Beck.  I assumed that Beck was the clear headliner–and yet the (younger) crowd seemed to be there more for Cage.  I also didn’t realize that they had collaborated recently on the song that this tour was named after).

But the biggest confusion for me was that I didn’t know who Cage the Elephant were.  They were part of that trend of bands that had three words with The in the middle. Like Pedro the Lion, Jukebox the Ghost, Minus the Bear and Young the Giant.  I assumed that I had no idea who Cage the Elephant were or what hey even sounded like.

But then I was surprised to discover that I really liked two of their songs but had no idea it was them: “Ready  to Let Go” and “Mess Around.”  After figuring that out, I was looking forward to them but really had no idea what to expect.

Well, they went on about ten minutes late (which was annoying, since they’d had 30 minutes to get ready).

Their stage set up was like bleachers–a guitar drum and keyboards on the top and a guitar vocals and bass on the floor.  Then the lights went down and the stage burst into flames! Continue Reading »

Posted in Beck, Cage the Elephant, CHAPPO, Holmdel, NJ, Minus the Bear, Pedro the Lion, PNC Bank Center, Set in New Jersey! | Leave a Comment »

Spoon (PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ, August 20, 2019) [BECK]

August 20, 2019 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: March 6, 2018] Spoon

I couldn’t believe that Spoon was the second band on this bill.  I had seen Spoon last year at the TLA in Philly and they played a huge set and the fanbase was rabid.  It was weird to see them in the setting sun (Britt Daniel came out and acted like he was a vampire when he saw the bright sun).

The crowd had filled in somewhat between Sunflower Bean and Spoon, but they were still going on at 6:45–not an ideal concert time, to be sure.

Regardless, the folks who were there were there for Spoon and they reacted appropriately. There was lots of dancing and singing along.  And Daniel either saw people he recognized or just acted like it because he was engaging and a lot of fun.

A few days before this tour started, it was announced that bassist Rob Pope was leaving the band [he’s going to spend more time with his other band The Get Up Kids].  It seemed liked terrible timing, but I gather they had his replacement Ben Trokan all lined up because they didn’t miss any dates on the tour and Trokan was great when I saw them.

Britt Daniel was dressed in a shirt and jacket (again, it was very hot, what’s up with these singers?).  He immediately started interacting with the crowd, climbing on his monitors and putting a foot on the fence that kept the crowd from the stage.  Like last time, they opened with “Do I Have to Talk You Into It” and everyone sounded fantastic.  Daniel’s voice was in great form and his guitar playing (when he played) was right on.

Since the previous show was nearly two hours and this one was barely 40 minutes, I assumed we’d get the truncated version of the previous set list.  But it seems that Spoon likes to mix things up a bit from night to night.  So up next was “The Way We Get By” which I didn’t hear last time (nice!).  They followed that with another favorite of mine, “My Mathematical Mind.”

They played the new song, “No Bullets Spent” which fit in perfectly with the rest of their set.  Then everyone went crazy when they started the rumbling guitar for “The Underdog”.  There were no horns like on the record, but the keys and piano were a great substitute.

I love watching drummer Jim Eno.  He seems to be having so much fun out there.  He definitely feeds off of Daniel’s energy–there were a couple of times when Daniel slashed his guitar through the air and Eno accented that with some drum hits.  During “The Underdog” he was playing the maracas and when he was done he hurled it across the stage to the roadie–who caught it!

The slow piano intro that started the next song sounded familiar, but I wasn’t sure if I knew it.  It turned out to be a cover of John Lennon’s “Isolation.”  It sure sounded like a Beatles song when they were playing it, but they put a nifty Spoon spin on it.

On the left side of the stage was Gerardo Larios and Alex Fischel both on keys and guitars.  Larios was standing in the back playing mostly keys but the occasional guitar.  I enjoyed watching Larios play the harp-like keyboard sounds during “Inside Out.”

Alex Fischel is a rocking lunatic on his side of the stage.  Mostly he’s bouncing and pouncing on his own keyboards and effects arrays but every once in awhile he would strap on a guitar and come out to the center of the stage for a minute, playing some noisy angular guitars like in “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” (a song I can’t believe they didn’t play last time and which I was super exited to hear tonight).

I knew that Trokan would fit in fine with Spoon once he played the throbbing bass of “I Turn My Camera On” which sounded perfect.

They ended the set with a rocking “Don’t You Evah” and  hen followed it with two songs from They Want My Soul, “Do You” and “Rent I Pay.”  Las time, they ended the TLA show with “Rent I Pay” as well.  So the first and last songs were the same, but much of everything else was different.

The sun started to set on them before their set ended, and that seemed to make their set a bit more fun.

Spoon were very loud though and I should have put in ear plugs.  But since they only played for 40 minutes, it wasn’t too much over-exposure for me.

All in all a great set and a good introduction to Spoon for S. who didn’t really know them.

 

2019 PNC 2018 TLA
Do I Have to Talk You Into It [Hot] Do I Have to Talk You Into It [Hot]
The Way We Get By [Moon] I Turn My Camera On [Gimme]
My Mathematical Mind [Gimme] Lowdown (Wire cover)
No Bullets Spent [Hits] The Fitted Shirt [Girls]
The Underdog [Ga] Don’t You Evah [Ga]
Isolation (John Lennon cover) Do You [Soul]
Inside Out [Soul] Via Kannela [interlude]
You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb [Ga] I Ain’t the One [Hot]
I Turn My Camera On [Gimme] Everything Hits at Once [Girls]
Don’t You Evah [Ga] Can I Sit Next to You [Hot]
Do You [Soul] My Mathematical Mind [Gimme]
Rent I Pay [Soul] Don’t Make Me a Target [Ga]
The Underdog [Ga]
Got Nuffin [Trans]
Black Like Me [Ga]
encore
Small Stakes [Moon]
Hot Thoughts [Hot]
Rent I Pay [Soul]

[Girls] Girls Can Tell (2001)
[Moon] Kill the Moonlight (2002)
[Gimme] Gimme Fiction (2005)
[Ga] Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007)
[Trans] Transference (2010)
[Soul] They Want My Soul (2014)
[Hot] Hot Thoughts (2017)
[Hits] Everything Hits at Once (2019)

Evidently Eno has different bass drum heads.  I wonder how often he changes them.

This time it was the one on the left.  Last time it was the one on the right.

Posted in Beck, Cage the Elephant, Holmdel, NJ, PNC Bank Center, Spoon, Sunflower Bean, Theatre of Living Arts | Leave a Comment »

Sunflower Bean (PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ, August 20, 2019) [BECK]

August 20, 2019 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: September 23, 2017] Sunflower Bean

Two years ago I saw Sunflower Bean open for Pixies. I thought they were great live and I wanted to see them again.  Since then, they have put out a second album and another EP.

When I saw that they were opening the Spoon/Cage the Elephant/Beck show, I knew I wanted to get there by 6 to see them again.  They were only given 25 minutes, and there were only about 25 people in the arena (not including the lawn), but they rocked the house.

In the two years since I’ve seen them, they have grown bigger (adding a keyboard player) and more confident.  Julia Cumming was a lot louder and more brash as the frontwoman–shouting to the people in the back (and the lawn) and encouraging us all to stand for the final song.  She also sounded great, employing a few different vocal styles on each song.  As always her bass (she plays a Rickenbacker, which is awesome) sounded great.  The biggest change was in her look.  Last time she was wearing a dress and had a fairly normal hairstyle.  For this show she was all glammed out, with a cool pink tigerprint dress and her hair and make up very new wave.  She looked an awful lot like Debbie Harry. Continue Reading »

Posted in Beck, Cage the Elephant, Debbie Harry, Holmdel, NJ, PNC Bank Center, Spoon, Sunflower Bean | Leave a Comment »

Terry Moore–Strangers in Paradise XXV #8 (2018)

August 20, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS AND HEADY FWENDS-“I’m working at NASA on Acid” (2012).

2012 saw the release of this very strange collaborative album.  Whether The Flaming Lips had entered the mainstream or if people who’d always liked them were now big stars or maybe they all just liked doing acid.  Whatever the case, The Lips worked with a vast array of famous (and less famous) people for this bizarre album.  Here it is 8 years later. Time to check in.

This song starts out with NASA voices and beeps.   The beeps turn into a rhythm and after a cool echoing guitar the song takes on almost a spaghetti western feel.  even with the bowed cello

The song features Lightning Bolt, a noise rock duo, and I assume they join in the fun in the middle of the song.

After three minutes, a pretty guitar melody leads to a sped up voice saying 1, 2,3, 4 as it soars into the next chaotic and wild section.  The riff speeds up, the drums and distortion increase and the song feels like an epic take off into outer space.

It runs for about two minutes and then slows down.  Way down.  After a backwards countdown 4,3,2,1, the song resumes as a gentle folk song kind of like “Space Oddity.”  It’s pretty cool.

[READ: August 1, 2019] Strangers in Paradise XXV #8

Katchoo is flying to Boston.  The voice over has a nice moment where we see just how much she loves Francine.

She lands and heads to Jet’s garage.  She tells Jet that she has something to give her.

They get into Katchoo’s car which is surrounded by ravens.  They seem to be following her.  I love Terry Moore’s art throughout this series.  He does realistic portrayals of women perfectly (even if sometimes I can’t tell some of the women apart).  I love the way he draws Jet so distinctively as well.  But those ravens, um, not so much.

Jet has no idea what the container is and when Katchoo explains the contents she thinks Katchoo is joking. Why did Stephanie send her to Jet if Jet doesn’t know what it is? Continue Reading »

Posted in Abstract Studio, Adventure, Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes, David Bowie, Death, Egyptology, End of the World, Feminism, Graphic Novel, Lightning Bolt, Lilith, Math, Murder, NASA, Parenting, Supernatural, Terry Moore, The Flaming Lips, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, Unfinished series, Violence | Leave a Comment »

George Saunders–“Elliott Spencer” (New Yorker, August 19, 2019)

August 19, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: LIZZO-Tiny Desk Concert #872 (July 29, 2019).

Obviously everyone knows who Lizzo is.  I had only recently heard of her and had heard amazing things about her live show. I even tried to get us tickets when she played the TLA, but it was sold out (good for her..I’m quite certain she will never play as tint a venue again soon).

Once we opened the room, there were as many people as we’ve ever had at a Tiny Desk concert, hanging on Lizzo’s every word as she held court and waited for the cameras to roll. She literally needed no introduction; one of us usually says a few words and gets the crowd to applaud for the start of the performance, but Lizzo was master of ceremonies from the second she walked in. Naturally, she needed all of two seconds to blow everyone’s hair back once more.

She starts out saying, “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. So I think I’ll do it today.  At this Tiny-Ass Desk.”

Lizzo belted out “Cuz I Love You,” the title track from her wonderful new album, with nothing off her fastball; if you were standing six feet away at the time, you’d swear the gale force of her voice was blowing your hair back. She was the star and the mayor rolled into one, at once ingratiating and commanding.

Lizzo’s voice is truly amazing.  A powerful instrument in which she can hold a long powerful note for a really long time.

Lizzo usually performs with dancers and a backing track; the former, though much-missed here, stood in the crowd and bobbed along… [while the backing] band assembled, at Bob Boilen’s request, just for the occasion.

Lizzo looks back at keyboardist Devin Johnson and says “Devin’s into this shit.”

After the song she says,

I’m crying cuz I love you but sometimes I’m crying cuz you get on my fuckin nevres.  Niggaz ain’t shit sometimes.  Bitches ain’t shit sometimes too and all the nonconforming genders in between you can be ain’t shit too.

There’s some great funky bass (Vernon Prout) and drums (Dana Hawkins) during “Truth Hurts.”  Walter Williams adds some quiet but nice melodies throughout.  And her singing the deep bum bum bum dad bum bum is really fun.

Then came

the literal and figurative show-stopper, “Juice,” which gave her the opportunity to pick up the flute she’d been waiting the whole set to bust out.

I had no idea Lizzo played the flute but she plays an awesome solo that adds so much to a song that I’ve heard so many times.

Lizzo was a lot of fun and very funny and wow, did she impress me wit her voice.  I now wish more than ever that I’d gotten a chance to see her in the tiny club.

[READ: August 18, 2020] “Elliott Spencer” 

George Saunders tends to write things in rather unique ways.  Sometimes it’s just in the concept that he is working worth.  Other times it is the way he presents it.  In this case it is both.

This story starts out in a very hard-to-read fashion:

Today is to be    Parts of the   Parts of my

Sure, Jer  Please do  Point at parts of me while saying the name of it off our list of Words Worth Knowing

Agespot

Finger

Wrist

What the hell is going on?

It is clear that whoever the narrator is, he or she or it is learning.

Next, Jer teaches the narrator Bellow and then the words to below: bastard, Turd, Creep, Idiot.

Then Jer informs 89 that from now on, 89 will be known as Greg.

Then Greg is on Job One.  They go to trees, but something is wrong

Our tree.in our HandiPic has squirrel No squirrel at all near these trees!

Greg and the others line up to shout the four words at the others.  They are across the river.  This river is actually police looking nervous. Continue Reading »

Posted in Amnesia, George Saunders, Huh?, Humiliation, Language, Lizzo, Memory, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence | Leave a Comment »

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