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Tobias Wolff–“In the Hay” (New Yorker, June 19 & 26, 2000)

June 2, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: CHRISTONE “KINGFISH” INGRAM-NonCOMM (May 16, 2019).

Generally speaking, I don’t like the blues.  I think it’s pretty boring music-wise, with most songs sounding vaguely the same, especially on record.  I would never go to a blues show on purpose.  However, if all blues shows were like this one from Kingfish, I’d go to a lot more.

Christone “Kingfish” Ingram a Mississippi guitar player has a lot of hype around him (XPN loves him) and while I haven’t enjoyed the songs they’ve played, this set was stunning.  And when you learn how old he is, it’s even more incredible.

Ingram’s otherworldly guitar playing and ridiculously rich voice make it hard to believe that he is only twenty years old. He is clearly aware of the absurdity of his talent given his age, as he sings “they say I got an old soul and I ain’t even 21.”

He opened with “Before I’m Old”, off his debut album Kingfish.  The song opens with a lengthy guitar solo and lyrics that are basically an autobiography.  When I was younger, I used to rate guitar players by their soloing skills.  I don;t do that anymore.  In fact I don;t really care if there are solos in songs these days.  But I do still enjoy a guitarist who can play a wicked solo live.

I don’t care much about the structure of “Before I’m Old” because it’s all about the jamming solo he plays.  The great part of the solo is the tone he gets.  It’s just him and a bassist (and a drummer), but it doesn’t sound like a bassist playing notes and a guitarist soloing independently.  His guitar is full enough that it sounds like a bigger band.

But his skills are really tremendous.  He seemingly casually busts out a minute and a half solo mid-song that is exciting and full of passion.  There’s basically two verse sin this five minute song which ends with a little nod to Jimi Hendrix.

Next came “Fresh Out”, which Ingram started solo. Eventually he was joined by his bassist and drummer, but his solo verse demonstrated that in a way, they’re just extras; he can carry this all on his own.

This is a slower, classic blues song about having no love.  But it’s all about the three and a half minute solo.  In the middle of it, he quiets everything down while playing a slow, moody passage while the band is almost silent, playing just enough to keep the song going while Kingfish jams.

The final song, “Out of This Town” is the one I’ve been hearing on the radio.  It’s catchy in a classic bluesy way, but I never thought much about it.  I do like the five note hook and pause just before he sings “out of this town” but otherwise it was just a blues song.

But this live version was a revelation.

Ingram stretched each of his tracks out, squeezing every last drop of possibility out of them. He stretched them so much that he was only able to fit three songs in his twenty minute slot. Like with the two before it, Ingram led “Out of This Town” into an explosive electric blues epic.

This song stretches out to 9 minutes, five of which are the guitar solo.  In the wrong hands, a five minute guitar solo can be an interminable wank-fest.  But Kingfish makes it interesting–you actually don’t want the song to star up again because the guitar is so good.  And yet, when his sings, his voice is deep and rich as well.

This show may even get me to enjoy the song more the next time I hear it on the radio.

[READ: June 1, 2019] “In the Hay”

This essay is a fascinating insight into manual labor, immigration and alcohol.  All in three columns of type.

In 1959, Wolff looked for summer work on the farms along the Skagit River near Seattle.  Wolff was fourteen and kind of small, so he worked at a farm for a bit and then moved on.  Then he met a farmer who paid him better and treated him well, so he settled in.

The more permanent field hands bucked hay, but Wolff was not strong enough to do that, so he hacked weeds or shoveled shit. He would pause from time to time, catching snippets of conversation on the wind.

The following summer he returned bigger and strong and he joined the hay crew.  The crew was four people: Wolff, Clemson, the farmer’s nephew and two Mexican brothers, Miguel and Eduardo. Continue Reading »

Posted in Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, Essays, Farming, Guns, Jimi Hendrix, Kingfish, New Yorker, NonComm, Summer, Tobias Wolff, Work, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA | Leave a Comment »

Starcrawler / The Distillers [Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, June 1, 2019] [POSTPONED]

June 1, 2019 by Paul Debraski

[NOT ATTENDED: June 1, 2019] Starcrawler/The Distillers [moved to August 14]

I got a ticket for this show more for Starcrawler than The Distillers.

I have heard that a live Starcrawler show is not to be missed and I was ready to watch them!

I wasn’t even really sure if I knew who The Distiller were, in fact.  Then I remembered I had seen an NPR Field Recording with Brody Dalle.  I didn’t love her solo song, but it got me to listening to a few songs from The Distillers, which I liked a lot more.

So I was pretty excited to go and I made sure that I got there early since I assumed there’d be a lot of Starcrawler fans there, too.

But when I drove past Union Transfer, there was a huge line out front.  Was I earlier than the doors opening time?  I found a parking spot and as I walked to the venue I saw people walking away.

When I got up to the doors, I saw the merch all set up, but the guy at the door politely said that Brody had herniated a disc in her back and the show was postponed.  And not for later in the night–she was in the hospital. Continue Reading »

Posted in Brody Dalle, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Starcrawler, The Distillers, Union Transfer | Leave a Comment »

Matthew Klam–“European Wedding” (New Yorker, May 8, 2000)

June 1, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: ORVILLE PECK-NonCOMM (May 16, 2019).

I have been intrigued by Orville Peck what with his masked face and all.  But then I heard this set and was disappointed.

What was even more disappointing was this blurb

Yeehaw is having a moment … country’s future has never seemed brighter.

My only hope is that the moment is brief and goes away soon.

Toronto-based Country crooner, Orville Peck, treated NonCOMM attendees to a taste of that future.

It’s interesting when you read a review of something and you wonder if you are listening to the same thing.

With his bulletproof voice, punk-inspired playing, and masked face, Peck put on a rousing and fringe-filled set.

His “bulletproof” voice sounds like a preposterous Elvis impersonation for most of “Dead of Night.”  I’d heard this song on the radio, but his voice is even more insane here. I mean, if someone came out and started singing like that I’d be on the floor laughing, assuming we were both in on the joke.

Although reading this, I’m inclined to like him more:

His backing vocalist joined only for the line “see the boys as they walk on by,” perhaps to highlight the novelty of a country song being about a gay relationship.

And, yes, I do like that part of the torch song because his falsetto is much better than his Elvis.

Punk-inspired? Well, “Turn to Hate” has some fast guitars for sure, although it slows down in a way I don’t like by the end.

“Big Sky” just sounds so absurd to me, like he is trying so hard to hit those notes that it is comic.  Again I feel like I listened to a different song that the blurb:

The somber “Big Sky” started slow, and dripping with melancholy. By the time Peck reached the second verse, it exploded.

In this case, exploded means it got slightly louder.  Weird.

I do agree with the “thunderous stampede of ‘Buffalo Run’” which would have been great aside from the “head on by” croon.

The final song, “‘Take You Back’ was played like a straight-up country jam, complete with a whistled intro and outro.”

I obviosuly don’t like country music, but I do enjoy a good stomping track like this.  Once again, it would be so much better if he didn’t try to croon like Elvis.

I guess people like him for this voice, but I don’t and, even worse, I found his voice mixed too loud throughout the show–it always seemed to be louder than the music.

His masks are cool, though.

[READ: June 1, 2019] “European Wedding”

I’ve enjoyed most of what I’ve read by Klam, but I found this story to be a little offputting.

It’s the story of, yes, a wedding in Europe.  I enjoyed many of the details of it, but the characters all sucked.

Nobody wants to get married in France except for the bride’s mother who has family there.  Gynnie the bride doesn’t want to get married there.  No one in the groom’s family wants to even go to France.

The groom, Rich, is terrible. (It’s also odd that I recently read his 2017 novel Who is Rich about a man named Rich.  It’s not the same Rich, but it is weird to have recycled the name).

Anyhow, as the story opens Rich is having sex with Nora, a client of his.  He wanted to have a little makeout session as a kind of last fling before his wedding.  But as soon as he kissed her, Nora took it really far. As she stripped, he found himself revolted by her.  And as she was sitting on his face and he was gasping for breath, he was revolted by himself. Continue Reading »

Posted in Elvis Presley, Matthew Klam, New Yorker, NonComm, Orville Peck, Parenting, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, Unlikable main character, Weddings, Yuck! | Leave a Comment »

Louise Erdrich–“Revival Road” (New Yorker, April 17, 2000)

May 31, 2019 by Paul Debraski

 SOUNDTRACK: STRAND OF OAKS-NonCOMM (May 15, 2019).

I’ve seen Strand of Oaks three times, although only once as a full band. Usually I see Tim Showalter’s Winter Spectacles–intimate shows with just him and a partner.  I forget how big the can sound with a full band.

“Weird Ways” opens the set.  I love the moment about two minutes in when the second guitar kicks in.  It seems like the song is going to be one thing but that second guitar changes the texture of the song up until the end.  The end is a catchy coda–synth waves, a big crescendo drums and a sing along “That’s a weird way to say goodbye.”
As Showalter introduced the band’s biggest hit, “Goshen ’97,” he recalled one of his favorite moments from the last decade. “I guess this is the first song of mine I ever heard on the radio, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I’ll never forget it. So if you know it, help us sing it.” The song describes Showalter’s memories of beginning to make music as a teenager in his hometown of Goshen, Indiana. “I was lonely but I was having fun!” he cried out during every pre-chorus.
I like mid-song when he says “gimme some shred!” and whoever is on guitar totally rocks out.
Up next is the new single “Ruby.”  I love the way he exaggeratedly slows down the chorus–it’s very effective.
Strand of Oaks stretched out many of their selections to make room for jamming and imagining, even though they were only scheduled to play a thirty-minute set. As usual, they made sure to enjoy every moment on stage to the fullest — they never rush. “If you know anything about this band, a half an hour is pretty tough for us to do,” Showalter admitted after fading out the end of “Ruby.” “That’s usually about one song,” he chuckled.
He dedicated “Keys,” to his wife, Sue.  “It’s easy to let your life slip away,” he sang.  The song featured slide guitar at its most melancholy and Showalter’s voice at its most wistful.
He dedicated “Radio Kids” to everyone who stayed up late listening for that song on the radio…pressing record and hoping to hear the name of the band.
They geared up for a set-ending “Hyperspace Blues” which I thought would be a lot longer.  But he was expecting his time to be over, so he kept it brief.  Then there was a surprise.
My favorite moment came after midnight, after Strand of Oaks were already supposed have finished their set. “So, the good folks at NonCOMM said that we can play a little bit longer,” Showalter announced with a grin. “We did this one a few days ago and dedicated this to a very dear friend of mine. Someone who’s changed my life for the better and I’m so happy and I’m so proud of him, and it’s just so good to see him …” He trailed off but then continued, almost broken up, “We’re gonna do this one for my dear friend Bruce Warren — let’s give Bruce Warren a big round of applause. The world’s a better place ’cause you’re here, Bruce, and we love you, so we’re gonna do this one for you. And we’ll burn it a little extra long for NonCOMM.”
“Forever Chords,” burns for twelve minutes.  It starts out slow, with a great tone and Showalter’s aching vocals.  There’s lengthy guitar solos, and pianos solos.  “The problem with living…. is one day you won’t” is not the happiest not to leave on, but the repeated chorus of “you hope it never ends” leaves us with an optimistic jamming moment.
[READ: May 30, 2019] “Revival Road”

Louise Erdrich writes unusual stories that I find very gripping.

This one is about a couple of families who live on Revival Road in rural new Hampshire.

The narrator is a middle aged woman who lives at home with her mother.  There is this wonderful passage:

It is difficult for a woman to admit that she gets along wit her own mother.  Somehow, it seem a form of betrayal.

The narrator is the lover of Kurt Heissman, a local artist.  His wife had died in a car accident many years earlier and he only had his daughter left.  She went to Sarah Lawrence.  She did not like the narrator.

Heissman’s work involved massive pieces of native slate or granite.  Pieces he couldn’t possibly move by himself so he always had a young man living in the guest house as his employee.  He had him stay nearby to be ready the moment that inspiration struck. Continue Reading »

Posted in Artists, Cars, Death, Louise Erdrich, New Yorker, NonComm, Parenting, Ravens, Sex, Short Story, Strand of Oaks, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA | Leave a Comment »

Rick Moody–“Forecast from the Retail Desk” (New Yorker, June 12, 2000)

May 30, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: CITIZEN COPE-NonCOMM (May 15, 2019).

I was marveling at the set lengths that various artists get at NonComm.  Most are pretty short (around 20 minutes).  So I was pretty surprised to see that Citizen Cope got 40. I thought Citizen Cope was a fairly new artist (although XPN talks about him a lot).

I was surprised to see that

Singer-songwriter Citizen Cope, otherwise known as Clarence Greenwood, has been around for close to two decades [and his fans were] ready to embrace his colorful blend of blues, folk, and rock.

I don’t especially like Citizen Cope’s music.  It’s okay and much better in small doses.  But I am especially amused at the write up of this concert because I feel like the person there was listening to a very different show than I was.  He opened

with the driving, upbeat “Let The Drummer Kick.” A fan favorite, the tune had everyone jumping.

I kind of like the song, although I would never describe it as upbeat.  His delivery is extremely drawly with him mostly him slowly rhyming words that end with “tion”: Equation / Humiliation / Reincarnation / Situation and a chorus of him repeating the title.  It’s kind of interesting but hard to believe he built a five-minute song out of that.

From there, he transitioned into “The River,” a new cut off of Heroin and Helicopters, his first release in six years. The song’s somber lyrics drifted on as the band played with grace.

This is a very funny description.  The lyrics do seem to drift on (as most of his lyrics so).  It’s hard to say the band plays with grace.  They play fine though.

“Justice” is a song that gets a lot of airplay on XPN.  It’s in the same style as his other songs–slow and kind of downbeat.  Although the chorus is pretty catchy.  I also like the psychedelic musical interludes.

“One Lovely Day” is a quieter song that begins with just him on guitar but when the band joins in, it sounds like the others.

Cope could not go without playing cuts from his 2004 record The Clarence Greenwood Recordings, of which he features “Son’s Gonna Rise” and “Sideways.” Both tracks transitioned perfectly from one another, matching the energy and vibe the crowd was looking for.

“Bullet & a Tart” picks up the pace somewhat although it’s not a very dramatic change.

As Cope finished, he shared an anecdote that inspired the title for his album — Carlos Santana warning Greenwood to stay away from the “two h’s,” heroin and helicopters, two things that historically and tragically claim the lives of musicians. The message resonated so strongly with Cope that he went on to name it his album, which was just released on his label Rainwater Recordings.

As Cope’s set drew to a close, he ended with another single off of his record, titled “Caribbean Skies.” This song’s lively beat and catchy hook moved the crowd.

“Caribbean Skies” is certainly catchy.  But again, not in any way lively.

This set is kind of monotonous, and I won’t be a Citizen Cope fan anytime soon, but clearly he doesn’t need me either.

[READ: May 20, 2019] “Forecast from the Retail Desk”

I typically enjoy Rick Moody stories, but I found this one really puzzling and hard to get into.

It begins with the (probably true) statement: “Nobody likes a guy who can foretell the future.”  The narrator, Everett Bennett works at a retail desk for some kind of investment firm.  He says he is not well liked at work and his job is surely the first to be made redundant.

His first demonstration of his prophetic skills came in school, in 1977.  He was in a lab with Bobby Erlich.  Erlich didn’t like him (nobody really did).  Bobby wouldn’t talk to him or collaborate in any way, so the narrator had to tel him straight up: “You’re going to be maimed in a horrible motorcycle accident. It’s really going to hurt too. Just remember we had this chat.”

Bobby replied, “You know what Bennett, I always thought you were a jerk. And I was right.”

Bobby doesn’t get into a motorcycle accident although he is in a car accident several years later.  He is making out with a policeman in the man’s car when it is hit by another car.  Everett had to wonder if he somehow caused the accident with his prediction. Continue Reading »

Posted in Cancer as plot device, Cars, Citizen Cope, Huh?, New Yorker, NonComm, Rick Moody, Short Story, The Future, Violence | Leave a Comment »

Alice McDermott–“Enough” (New Yorker, April 10, 2000)

May 29, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: LULA WILES-NonCOMM (May 16, 2019).

I thought Lula Wiles was a person, but they are a trio.

Contemporary roots trio Lula Wiles shined brilliantly on Thursday night. The young band, consisting of Eleanor Buckland, Isa Burke and Mali Obomsawin — joined by Eli Cohen on drums — [played] a passionate mix of bluegrass, country rock and folk music.

All four members of the group grew up in Maine, and they met while taking lessons at Maine Fiddle Camp, “which I know is, like, disgustingly adorable,” Buckland remarked during the show.  All three singers are also songwriters and instrumentalists, and they displayed impressive group chemistry in several different instrumentations throughout their performance. The trio has always sounded stellar in a traditional bluegrass format — like fiddle, guitar and upright bass — but they added new dimensions to their set when they chose to break out of that format and explore other sounds.

They opened with a traditional country-sounding song, “Hometown”

Lula Wiles’ opener, the poignant “Hometown,” found Burke playing an electric guitar with plenty of added fuzz, which propelled the song forward on top of Cohen’s steady backbeat. Buckland sang three verses from the perspective of an adult returning to her beloved hometown to find her friends and family struggling to make ends meet; the song’s lens gradually moved from personal to historical. “Flip a coin and call it pride or shame / Red and white and the working blues / Welfare, warfare, laying the blame / No matter who wins, someone’s gonna lose,” she proclaimed in her third verse.

“Nashville Man” is even more country, but a more stompin’ country with lots of fiddle from Burke and old-fashioned harmonies.

The album, What Will We Do, which follows their self-titled 2016 debut, fits within the stylistic paradigms for American roots music, but the songwriters also bring personal specificity and a modern edge — they pose questions about identity, history, and the principles of justice. In a statement on Lula Wiles’ website, Obomsawin explains, “We wanted to make an album that reflected, in a current way, what we are all staying up late thinking about and talking about over drinks at the dinner table […] What is everyone worried about, confiding in their friends about, losing sleep about?”

The first two songs seemed kind of fun (musically at least), but things get more serious when Burke introduced “Shaking as It Turns,”

She explained that she had written the song following the violent neo-Nazi rallies that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.

She says it’s about how she felt that summer and how I feel about what it’s like to be a person in America today.  Do you all have feeling about that.  We only have a 20-minute set or we’d expound on that longer–you’ll have to pay attention to the lyrics.

“Is this land yours? Is this land mine?” Burke solemnly wondered between plucks on her banjo. “Baby, do you know just who your enemies are?”

Musically, this was the most interesting with its percussion heavy banjo and loping beat.

Up next is the most powerful and affecting song of the night, “Good Old American Values.”

It is a country waltz on which Obomsawin sang and played a touching upright bass solo. Obomsawin, who is Native American and belongs to the Abenaki Nation, wrote the song “about growing up in a country that was built on the genocide of your people,” she explained.  She was inspired to write the song when protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline occurred on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota in 2016.

She doesn’t hold back on the lyrics, and the slow melody allows the words to stand clearly.

“Indians and cowboys and saloons / It’s all history by now, and we hold the pen anyhow / drawing good old American cartoons.” Then, after a verse about “American tycoons kicking their feet up in Cancún,” the chord changes took a dark turn, leading into a steely fiddle solo by Burke. “On those good old American values / There’s a fortune to be made,” Obomsawin concluded at the end of the song.

Obomsawin also told the crowd that she has been working on an essay for the Smithsonian Center’s Folklife Magazine about her experiences growing up as a Native person in Maine — I spoke with her for a few minutes after the show about her writing. Obomsawin explained that Native people are the “most invisible” of any ethnic group in the United States, and that she wanted to write about the many ways in which she sees Native peoples’ history and culture being made invisible in the twenty-first century.

When she was growing up, she and her family were the only Native people in their community, which was predominantly white. Although she did not remember experiencing explicit discrimination, she remembered times when she felt alienated by other people in some ways that were “fetishizing” and other ways that were “just ignorant.” As she became involved in the folk music community as a young person, she realized that the culture of American folk music bears a legacy of using Native tropes in songs and performances — especially Native clothing and images of Native people. These forms of cultural appropriation by white musicians are sometimes so ubiquitous, she noted, that many people don’t even notice they are happening. Obomsawin concluded by saying that when Smithsonian Folklife publishes her piece later this year, she hopes people will “read it with an open mind,” because sometimes Native peoples’ critiques of American culture are “so fundamental,” and they lead so deep down to the core of our country’s history, that they challenge our deepest notions of American identity.

The final song of the night is “Love Gone Wrong” the first track on the new record.  It’s a more rocking song with a nice guitar sound a great harmonies that reminds me of I’m With Her.  This song is a

vulnerable reconciliation about an imperfect romance. “What you got left when the flicker dies out? / Tell me what we’re gonna do now?” Burke and Buckland asked together. After the second chorus, the song suddenly turned slow and brooding as Cohen’s drums began to thunder. “There’s never gonna be a right time,” all three singers cried out together, their close three-part harmonies at their boldest and brightest.

That shift in tempo makes the song so much more dramatic.  It is a great set-ender.

[READ: May 22, 2019] “Enough”

This is a short story of a woman’s life.

The story begins with her as a young girl, the youngest of six, whose job it was to clean the plates after Sunday meals.  Each Sunday was a feast topped off by dessert. Every fourth Sunday was ice cream, the day she loved best.

She would bring in two dishes at a time (it was the good china) and proceed to lick the bowls clean from rim to rim.  She also delighted in the ice cream in her own bowl, but was always told not to be so unladlylike in her enjoyment.

When she got older, she developed “the problem with the couch.”  The problem was that she kept getting caught with a boy on it.  First when she was fourteen, both children blushing brightly. Continue Reading »

Posted in Abenaki Nation, Alice McDermott, Babies, Folklife Magazine, I'm With Her, Ice Cream, Lula Wiles, Native Americans, New Yorker, NonComm, Parenting, Sex, Short Story | Leave a Comment »

Nick Hornby–“Pain in My Heart” (New Yorker, August 26 & September 2, 1996)

May 28, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: ALI AWAN-NonCOMM (May 15, 2019).

Ali Awan is a Philly native and WXPN loves him.

Ali Awan‘s whole set was drenched in sound, and yet the crowd always seemed eager for even more.  The Philly artist and his six-person band opened his NONCOMM set with the bombastic “Be a Light.” The track, which Awan just released a surreal video for, highlights the band’s ability to make a lot of noise.

Like the rest of the set it features rocking guitars and a retro feel including backing “doo doos.”

Three guitars, one played by Awan himself, didn’t feel like enough for “Pick Me Up”, a bright cut off Awan’s new EP.

“Pick Me Up” is he ridiculously catchy track that WXPN has been playing so much.  The bouncy chorus is unforgettable.

The combined power of the rest of the ensemble added even more of the energy that the crowd craved. Everything Awan and co. did sounded like a lot, but purposefully so, making every ounce of noise feel valuable.

“Citadel Blues” has a bouncy repeated “beat beat beat beat” followed by a cool downward guitar riff.  His songs sound familiar–old school jangly distorted guitars with an updated retro soubnd.

The 26-year-old’s unique psych rock stylings enraptured everyone in attendance. There seemed to be as much jumping and dancing on stage as there was off stage, especially during the gripping “Citadel Blues” and “Beyond The Valley”.

Awan closed out the set with “Rubble and the Memories” which was so full of energy the “bah da das” could barely be contained in the song.

No doubt Ali Awan would be a fun performer to see live.

[READ: May 1, 2019] “Pain in My Heart”

While looking through back issues of the New Yorker, I discovered that Nick Hornby had written a number of essays for them.  Not as many as I imagined he would have, but at least a handful.

In this, his first piece for the New Yorker (as far as I can tell), Hornby combines his love of music with his humor at being disappointed by his heroes.

He starts by citing an old R&B lyric that he’d always liked:

I’d rather be blind, crippled, and crazy / Somewhere pushing up a daisy / Than to let you break my hear all over again.

But then an “over-analytical” friend asked why he had to be blind, crippled and dead.  Surely just being dead would get the job done. Continue Reading »

Posted in Al Green, Ali Awan, Essays, Funny (ha ha), James Brown, Music, New Yorker, Nick Hornby, NonComm, O.V. Wright, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA | Leave a Comment »

Ben Lerner–“Ross Perot And China” (New Yorker, May 27, 2019)

May 27, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: CHERRY GLAZERR-NonCOMM (May 15, 2019).

A couple of years ago I had a pass to NonComm, but ultimately I decided not to go.  I had never been to World Cafe Live and, while it sounded like a fun time, it was just so many mid-week nights and lots of leaving early, that it sounded more exhausting than fun.

I have now been to World Cafe Live and I can imagine that the (less divaish) bands are hanging around talking to people (and radio personalities) which is probably pretty cool.

I loved the idea of these sorta personal concerts, too.  But I have since come to see that they are 20-45 minutes tops.  Hardly worth driving 90 minutes for.

But now that the sets are available to stream after the show, there’s no need to go.

The year I was going to go there were a bunch of artists I was excited to see.  This year there weren’t as many.

Although Cherry Glazerr is a band I’d like to check out.

Cherry Glazerr is a Los Angeles trio who formed in high school.  The blurb notes:

They’ve been known to keep a social and political message at the forefront of their songs, confronting the misogyny that’s too prevalent in their scene — and in our culture.   At one point, frontwoman Clementine Creevy turned her back to the microphone, leaned back limbo-style, jumped up and down — and didn’t miss a beat. That’s what frustrated feminist punk looks like in 2019 according to Cherry Glazerr.

They totally rock as well, cramming six songs into 20 minutes.

They open with feedback and drums that settles into “Ohio” –a distorted lumbering catchy song with Creevy’s vocals riding along the top.  I love the unusual riff that accompanies the song after the verses.  The solo is simple but very cool.

“Self-Explained” is slower with a cool vocal line in the verses.  It has a tempo that demands a big build up.  And the guitar solo fills that in really well.   “Wasted Nun” has some more great buzzing guitars and thumping drums over a simple but satisfying punk riff.

“Daddi” changes the dynamic of things with whispered creepy-sounding lyrics and a quiet guitar melody for the verses.  The big pounding chorus changes things up dramatically.

Those three songs come from their new album, while the final two come from their previous album, Apocalipstick.  “Apocalipstick” has a big powerful riff and turns out to be a rocking instrumental–it’s as good as the title of the song.

They end with “Told You I’d Be With The Boys,” a song with a cool riff and some nifty guitar licks as well.  I also like the vocal tricks that Creevy uses on this track.  And the way it ends is a total blast.

It’s a great set and makes me want to see them next time they’re playing more than 20 minutes!

[READ: May 27, 2019] “Ross Perot and China”

The title of this story was just so evocative.  I couldn’t imagine where Lerner would go with this.

And so as I started reading it, I had to wonder, is the main character Ross Perot?  Is that a young Ross Perot on a boat, drinking Southern Comfort in a man-made lake?  It sure could be.  Or maybe the young lady he’s with is Ross Perot’s daughter?

So that when the young lady slips off the boat unnoticed and he can’t find her, I wondered–where is this going?

Well, soon enough it is revealed that Ross Perot is not a character in the story, he is more of an abstract idea. Continue Reading »

Posted in Ben Lerner, Boats, Cherry Glazerr, New Yorker, NonComm, Ross Perot, Sex, Short Story, World Cafe Live, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA | Leave a Comment »

Tom Drury–“Chemistry” (New Yorker, April 24 & May 1, 2000)

May 26, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: EX HEX-NonCOMM (May 15, 2019).

I really liked Mary Timony’s band Helium.  I’ve followed her over the years and now she has this relatively new band called Ex Hex.

Punk rock veteran Timony is known for her work in 90’s bands Helium and Autoclave, plus supergroup Wild Flag, while her co-frontperson in Ex Hex, Betsy Wright, also plays in Bat Fangs. The trio is rounded out by drummer Laura Harris, also of The Aquarium, and although they played tonight as a four-piece, they retained their effortless sense of cool.

Ex Hex is the most commercial sounding music she’s made and I found their first album a little boring.  They were kind of straight ahead punk pop songs that might have been revolutionary in the 90s but are kind of staid now.

The newer songs, however, are more a little more complex and more interesting as a result.

“Don’t Wanna Lose” comes from their first album. It’s got reverbed guitars and a simple melody.  It sounds a bit like Sleater-Kinney, which isn’t too surprising since Timony was in Wild Flag with Carrie Brownstein before forming Ex Hex.

“Tough Enough” is slower and a bit more classic rock sounding.  In fact, all of the songs here feel more big riff classic rock than the simple punk of the first album.  “Rainbow Shiner” has a big metal riff.  It’s complicated and cool and makes you want to raise your fist in the air.

I don’t know if Timony is the only person doing guitar solos (it looks like Betsy Wright is also playing guitar). But “Good Times” opens with a lengthy guitar solo, which I assume is all Timony.

“Radiate” is a bouncy song with twin guitars and a quiet middle part.  They end the set with my favorite track, “Cosmic Cave.”  This one specializes in lots of reverb an echo with spacey flanging sounds at the end.

This set make me want to bust out rips again and see if I was missing something.  But also to get It’s Real where most of these songs come from, because I liked what I hear.

[READ: May 20, 2019] “Chemistry”

A policeman told a crowd he was Looking for a retired chemist.  His daughter had dropped the man off at the cinema but when the movie was over he was no where to be found.

The crowd was in the Road House which stood next to the cinema.

I enjoyed the way the characters were set up.  The cook, Keith Lyon, felt mystified at his life.  He was in his forties and spent all day filling plates and having empty plates return.

It was as if a joke had been played on his life, thought he could see the humor of it and it hadn’t made him bitter.

A customer in the restaurant suggested the man got bored and left the movie early, “I might do that.”

“What you might do is beside the point,” said the policeman. “As you’re not missing.”

No one was a suspect in the Road House, the policeman was looking for volunteers to comb the nearby forest where they think the man went. Continue Reading »

Posted in Carrie Brownstein, Ex Hex, Helium, Mary Timony, New Yorker, NonComm, Old Age, Romance, Short Story, Tom Drury, Wild Flag, World Cafe Live | Leave a Comment »

Anne Enright–“Taking Pictures” (New Yorker, March 27, 2000)

May 25, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: ADIA VICTORIA-NonCOMM 2019 Free at Noon (May 15, 2019).

I saw Adia Victoria do a Tiny Desk Concert back in 2016.  I liked her and thought it would be interesting to hear her when she wasn’t holding back for a Tiny Desk.  And here she is rocking out.

Her music is a little hard to pin down, she describes it as blues, but there’s a lot more going on:

her songs were structured like mainstream R&B hits, but in her most memorable moments Victoria turned away from the traditional styles of blues and soul, and turned instead toward something more macabre–like the moody trip-pop of Billie Eilish.

This sound is the direction she went in on her new album.

The set began with “The Needle’s Eye” as a pulsing synth morphed into a danceable rhythm (electric and acoustic drums).  Victoria sang in a breathy voice.  After the chorus, two saxophones provided a noisy distorted solo.  She sang “I’ve been a fool, I’ve been afraid, I’ve been asleep, but now I’m awake.”

She introduced herself “My name is Adia Victoria. This is my band. We done come all the way up from Nashville to play my blues for you.” Then, after a beat, “Lucky you.”

Her introduction for “Different Kind of Love” was brief and mirthless. “It’s about getting dumped,” she shrugged, without even a moment of heartache over the one who dumped her.

This song continues in that dark vein with rumbling drums providing most of the “melody” along with more sax.

Up next was “Bring Her Back,” which she called “a song for my ancestors.” This song used an organ to change the tone.

Victoria played “Heathen” at the Tiny Desk on an acoustic guitar.  I thought it would be better louder.  And it was.  Especially knowing its origins:

As she introduced her final song, “Heathen,” Victoria mentioned some of the frustration she experienced as a young woman with dreams of becoming a professional performer. “My little voice would break and my knees would shake, but I had this song and I made no mistakes,” she rhymed. Victoria explained that she wrote the song “after I realized that there were two sets of rules — one for men, and one for women. When it came time to gettin’ your freak on, I was very naïve. So I wrote this song. It’s a nice little ‘screw you’ to the patriarchy. We play it tonight for every single woman in Alabama right now who’s got these men trying to make moves on their body. We say, ‘That’s bullshit.’” Victoria had aimed her criticism at Alabama’s state legislature, which recently passed a highly restrictive anti-abortion bill…. “This song is called ‘Heathen’ and it’s about giving no fucks,” she declared before counting it off.

The song was much darker and more raw than the Tiny Desk version. It also felt a lot more bluesy than her newer songs (with a lot of sax blowing around the simple chord pattern).

She finished with a gritty chorus of improvised scatting; each syllable landed somewhere between a laugh and a snarl. Afterward, she addressed the Philadelphia crowd resolutely once more and gave a single deep bow. “Thank you, goodnight.”

Adia Victoria is an intriguing performer for sure and I’m curious how her sound will expand in the future.

[READ: May 20, 2019] “Taking Pictures”

Two days ago I posted a story about someone stealing pictures.  Now here’s the title “Taking Pictures.”  They are not related in any other way.

This story is about a woman who has just gotten engaged.  And her relationship with Sarah at work–the bitch.

Sarah is

a washed-out sort of strawberry blonde with fine bones and small features.  She is fading to white.  She is constantly insulted by men.

Sarah at work also has a personality problem

Which is to say her problem is that she does not like other people’s personalities.

The narrator is surprised that Sarah is seeing someone.  Sarah says he won’t “do Saturdays.”  Maybe he’s a bisexual. Continue Reading »

Posted in Abortion, Adia Victoria, Anne Enright, Billie Eilish, Drinking, Huh?, New Yorker, NonComm, Romance, Short Story, Weddings, World Cafe Live | Leave a Comment »

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