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Japanese Breakfast (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, June 3, 2018)

June 3, 2018 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: June 3, 2018] Japanese Breakfast

Japanese Breakfast is the creation of Philadelphia-based Michelle Zauner.  She sings pretty melodies and has a variety of tones when she sings–some high-pitched notes and some lower parts as well.

A lot of bands celebrate in some way when they play a home town.  Sometimes its an extra song or a guest.  I don’t really know how this show deviated from other in terms of set list, but Zauner had a lot to celebrate being back at Union Transfer.

[Quotes and quoted passages are from an article in The Key

“I fucking used to work coat check here,” Zauner told the audience as she gazed into the sold out crowd at UT.

She said this just after she’d sung her first song “Diving Woman.”  It was the first time she had headlined Union Transfer.  She said she felt a bit shy playing here because so many friends and family were in attendance.  And she talked a lot about her connections to the city.  She graduated from Bryn Mawr college and she recorded both Japanese Breakfast albums in Philly.   Continue Reading »

Posted in Japanese Breakfast, Philadelphia, PA, Radiator Hospital, Union Transfer | Leave a Comment »

LVL UP (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, June 3, 2018) [JAPANESE BREAKFAST]

June 3, 2018 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: June 3, 2018] LVL UP

I had two ideas of what LVL UP sounded like.  I thought they were either a punky crazy band or were a poppy band.

Turns out they were neither.  They’re more punk than pop, but there’s a kind of a DIY quality to their music more than anything polished.

I was also delighted to see that they have three singers (and I assume songwriters) as well.  For this show, they basically went around the horn with who sang lead.

Bassist Nick Corbo started off with “Angel From Space.”   He was followed by guitarist Mike Caridi with his more angular song “Blur.”  Then came second guitarist Dave Benton with his more chill sounding “Soft Power.”

The only one who didn’t sing was drummer Greg Rutkin.

Then they repeated the cycle.  Nick Corbo with his big old-fashioned looking bass played the slower “Five Men on the Ridge.”  Back to Caridi with a new song (all the others are, I believe on their new album.  It was followed by Benton’s “I Feel Extra Natural” which references the Silver Jews.

They went through the cycle of singers one more time and then played a couple more songs at the end.  It was cool that they kept things moving and all sounding pretty different while maintaining their overall vibe.

 

 

Posted in LVL UP, Philadelphia, PA, Silver Jews, Union Transfer | Leave a Comment »

Radiator Hospital (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, June 3, 2018) [JAPANESE BREAKFAST]

June 3, 2018 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: June 3, 2018] Radiator Hospital

Radiator Hospital is a Philly band led by Sam Cook-Parrott.

They write short, punky songs with Cook-Parrott singing most of them.

In an interview he said

Usually, I write simple songs so we can learn them quickly and then play shows. But then six months after we recorded it, we will look back at the recorded version and think we play [those songs] much better now after playing at shows all the time.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Radiator Hospital, Union Transfer | Leave a Comment »

Lu Yang–“Silver Tiger” (New Yorker, June 4 & 11, 2018)

June 3, 2018 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: GUSTER-Lost and Gone Forever Live (2014).

In 2014, Guster released three CDs of them playing their early CDs live in their entirety (excluding for some reason their second disc Goldfly).  This is their third CD ‘Lost and Gone Forever’ recorded live in concert, ten years after its release.

I’m not sure why they don’t say what show it is from, unless they picked the best recordings from a tour?  He does mention Boston at one point, but not sure if the whole show was recorded there.

As with the other two releases, the sound is great.  On “Barrel of a Gun” you can really hear the bongos.

There are a few more guests, which again, makes me think it’s different shows.  Ryan says “We’re inviting a bunch of people to help with instrumentation. Donnie and Amy are going to play strings” [on “Either Way”].  And later, “Fa Fa” has an amazing horn section.

For “All the Way Up to Heaven,” Ryan introduces, “Alright snow kitty bring up the children. It’s 10 o’clock.  It’s late.  Did you teach them the big rock move at the end?  That’s the most important part of the song.”

Like the other discs, they thank everyone for coming out and supporting this album.  He talks about how when they first started playing in 1991 they were all skinnier and had more hair.  They had no idea that so many years later they would still be together and be selling out shows.  “It’s a humbling experience.”

Incidentally when they announced this tenth anniversary tour, they made a video announcement.

[READ: May 31, 2018] “Silver Tiger”

This story involves realism and magical realism.

The narrator Ah Yang, is an adult looking back on his childhood when he lived with Deaf Granny.  He was sent to her early and only rarely saw his parents.

He first saw the titular Silver Tiger near a well pond by Deaf Granny’s house.   Well ponds are an ancient water storage system in China.  They are shaped like pools but are the depth of wells.  It was always off-limits to him  Deaf Granny feared that if he fell in there’d be no saving him (not unreasonable).  But that’s all he wanted to do after he first saw it.

It became even more enticing when a local boy found a turtle in a neighbor’s well pond.  Oh how the narrator wanted his own turtle. Continue Reading »

Posted in Deafness, Death, Eric Abrahamsen, Guster, Lu Yang, New Yorker, Short Story, Supernatural, Tigers, Translation | Leave a Comment »

Karen Russell–“Orange World” (New Yorker, June 4 & 11, 2018)

June 2, 2018 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: GUSTER-Parachute Live from Brooklyn Bowl (2013).

In 2014, Guster released three CDs of them playing their early CDs live in their entirety (excluding for some reason their second disc Goldfly).  So this is a recording of their first album ‘Parachute’ performed and recorded live in concert at Brooklyn Bowl on December 1, 2013.

This album sounds quite different from the other Guster albums.  I don’t really understand what the difference is.  It sounds like Guster, but not exactly.  Is it that they both sing in harmony through most of the songs?  Is it that Ryan sings “better?”  Are the songs just more folkie?

Whatever the case, even after several albums that don’t sound like this album and nearly twenty years, the band jumps right back into it (the harmonies on “Window” are perfect, for example).

They aren’t the same three-piece they were back in 1994 (they have drums now for instance), but it all works very well.  They also aren’t terribly funny between songs.  Usually Ryan is pretty silly in a show, but they seemed to take it more or less seriously.

After “Dissolve” Ryan says, “we’re playing in a bowling alley I just realized.  Cool.”  You can hear someone in the crowd shout “steeerike.”

I know the guys have made jokes about their song “Happy Frappy” a few times when I’ve seen them, so it’s no surprise that before the song, Ryan shouts, “Alright its ‘Happy Frappy’ time, stoners.”  Although I have no idea what the song is actually about.

When the disc is over Ryan shouts, “Parachute the album–19 and a half years old!”

I think it sounds even better than the original.

[READ: June 2, 2018] “Orange World”

I love when a title gives you an idea but it is totally not the idea of what  the story means–and the new idea is even better than what you had imagined.

“Orange World” conjured up many things to me, but not the devil, not a woman nursing the devil and not a woman nursing the devil every night because the evil saved her baby’s life.

When Rae was pregnant she was worried about a lot of things: ABNORMAL RESULT, HIGH RISK, CLINICAL OUTCOME UNKNOWN.  When the third test came back, she started begging for anything to save her baby from the unknown.

Between 4 and 5 A.M. one night something answered and it promised the baby would be okay.

So what does this have to do worth orange world?  Well, “Orange World is where most of us live.”  It is a nest of tangled electric cords and open drawers filled with steak knives.  It’s a used crib  It’s compromises that could hurt the safety of your baby.  You take a shower with your baby and suddenly….

“Green World” is a fantasy realm of soft corners and infinite attention. The Educator say that Green World is ideal but Orange World is the reality.  Next week’s class is “Red World” and Rae doesn’t want to think about it.

Rae takes the baby doll.  Its head falls off and she steps on the blanket.  Sneaker bacteria: Orange World; decapitation: Red World.  The educator encourages her to go to new moms group. Continue Reading »

Posted in Babies, Depression, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Guster, Karen Russell, New Yorker, Parenting, Short Story, Supernatural, The Devil | Leave a Comment »

Primus (Convention Hall, Asbury Park, NJ, June 1, 2018)

June 1, 2018 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: June 1, 2018] Primus

My friend Al and I saw Primus back in 1990 or 1991.  It was an amazing show and I have been a fan ever since.  And yet for some reason I had never seen them live again.  During all of their iterations and tours–headlines, festivals, everything.  In recent years I have really wanted to see them but something always kept me from going.

I missed their Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2014) show because of a vacation.   I somehow missed a summerstage tour in 2015 with two other bands I would have loved to see.  There was no local show in 2016 and then I was busy in 2017.  So here it was, finally a chance to see them.  (Setlists for those shows do show rather few songs, I must admit…really I should have gone to the two-set shows back in 2012).

Anyhow, it had been nearly 30 years and I was excited to see anything.

So it’s a bit of a shame I couldn’t see much.  I don’t know if their light show was designed more for outside, but in this cavernous dark auditorium, the band members were almost entirely obscured. Continue Reading »

Posted in Asbury Park, NJ, Convention Hall, Primus | Leave a Comment »

Mastodon (Convention Hall, Asbury Park, NJ, June 1, 2018) [PRIMUS]

June 1, 2018 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: June 1, 2018] Mastodon

I saw Mastodon two years ago.  The band was great, but I left the show somewhat unsatisfied.  Was it the venue (Electric Factory, I think so); was it the crowd (a large and unceasing mosh pit, I think so).

I felt like I wanted to see them again.  But when they came back around a year later, I decided against it.  In part because it was the same venue and in part because it was an all day event with four bands (most of whom I liked, but that’s practically a festival).  A note on the setlist says that Brent Hinds was visibly upset with technical problems the whole show, so I’m glad I didn’t go.  Especially since this show’s setlist was very similar.

When this tour was announced co-headliners Primus and Mastodon, it seemed pretty ideal.  I have been wanting to see Primus and here was redemption for Mastodon–I’ve been pretty happy with the shows I’ve seen at Summer Stage.

Well, a thunderstorm was forecast for the entire day in Asbury Park, so they moved the show inside.  It wound up not raining at all, but you have to make a decision early when you have so much gear and they made the right choice–even if it may not have sounded as good.

I arrived late and missed  the opening band All Them Witches entirely.

But Mastodon sounded great.  The crowd wasn’t that large for them, I was surprised to see.  A largish pit started in the middle but it never really took off that much.  It was nicely contained and I was on the edge of it, where I like to be.

I like nearly everything Mastodon has released, although I don;t really know which album the songs come from.  So I didn’t even realize that so many songs came from their newest album Emperor of Sand (7 of 17).

The one good thing about it being inside is that it was still light out when they went on, but it was dark inside, which meant that their backgrounds and visuals worked well. Continue Reading »

Posted in All Them Witches, Asbury Park, NJ, Mastodon, Philadelphia, PA, Primus, Starland Ballroom, The Electric Factory | Leave a Comment »

All Them Witches (Convention Hall, Asbury Park, NJ, June 1, 2018) [PRIMUS]

June 1, 2018 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: June 1, 2018] All Them Witches 

I didn’t know All Them Witches before this show.  And I don’t know them after this show.  Parking in Asbury Park was pretty rough and, it being after Memorial Day traffic was worse than when I had driven down there in the winter.

Because of the impending torrential thunderstorm (which never actually materialized), the show was moved from the Stone Pony Summer Stage to Conventional Hall.  It was the right decision given the forecast, but….well, whatever.

Anyhow, I missed them entirely.  I walked in as they were packing up their gear.

Sorry.

Posted in All Them Witches, Asbury Park, NJ, Convention Hall, Mastodon, Primus, The Stone Pony Summer Stage | Leave a Comment »

Lara Vapnyar–“Borscht” (Harper’s, February 2006)

June 1, 2018 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: TOM MISCH-Tiny Desk Concert #749 (June 1, 2018).

Tom Misch sings music that I would classify as boring.  It’s kind of lite-jazz.

Misch has said before that he isn’t a jazz purist intrinsically, but the way he opens up a guitar solo or jams with saxophonist Braxton Cook, jazz music certainly runs through him.

His voice is interesting but “that soothing timbre of his voice” is more soporific than anything else.

The blurb certainly raves about him:

I first caught wind of this UK wunderkind in 2014. Crafting his own instrumental projects and remixing tracks by artists ranging from Busta Rhymes to Lianne La Havas, Misch steadily garnered a dedicated following on SoundCloud. From there, he collaborated with other London artists and released EPs of original music on the platform. Misch’s style doesn’t revel in what’s going on in pop music today; like a handful of other artists from the UK, his interpretation of hip-hop and R&B is a continuation of what the greats who came before him started.  In 2016, Misch — still just 21 years old at the time — decided to dabble more in songwriting.

He plays three songs (totaling 17 minutes) and I genuinely thought the second song was the same as the first.

“It Runs Through Me” has an enjoyable guitar solo and a long sax solo (Braxton Cook).  Although “I Wish” sounds like the first song at first, there is an interesting moment  midway through the song where they thrown in a riff and change the tempo a bit.  There’s also a long wah wah solo which is neat.

The final song “Movie” is a total smoky nightclub jazz song.  There’s a piano solo (the pianist (Joseph Price) even has a jazz hat on).  It’s got all the elements.  But I would never go into a smokey jazzy nightclub.

The rest of the band includes: Tobias Tripp (guitar/violin/vocals), James Creswick (bass), and Jamie Houghton (drums).

[READ: February 7, 2018] “Borscht”

Sergey has been living in the US for about a year.  His plan was to go to the States to work for a year and send money home to his wife.  But it had been a year and she felt that maybe he should stay longer and make more money.  They had enough for a house, but they’d need more for furnishings and the like.

He was sick of installing carpets.  He hated the feel and the smell and the stupid names of colors for ugly carpets : Morning Fog, Bay Fog, Autumn Leaves, he decided they should be called Moldy Bread or a A Pile Of Cow Dung On A Warm Day

He woke one morning with an erection and a headache.  He looked at the picture of his wife–he had only the one.  She didn’t look happy, and he no longer remembered what she looked like aside from the picture.

His roommate Pavel had a woman over.  She wasn’t Sergey’s type, but she was wearing next to nothing and she smelled good.

He found the paper under the couch and in the back were personal ads.  There was one that caught his eye : “A warm, sexy woman will tend to your needs. Affordable.” Continue Reading »

Posted in Lara Vapnyar, Marriage Trouble, Nostalgia, Russia, Sex, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Tom Misch | Leave a Comment »

Diane Williams–“If Told Correctly” (Harper’s, November 2009)

May 31, 2018 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: DARLINGSIDE-EP1 (2010).

It’s amazing in retrospect how bland the first Darlingside song on their first EP is.

Darligside is a unique band, with gorgeous harmonies and unexpected instrumentation.  Their songs are gorgeous.

But this album is very different.  The first main difference is that there is a drummer–a real drummer named Sam Kapala.  Kapala is quite good, but wow does that change the entire tone of a Darlingside song.  Second, the band doesn’t sing everything in harmony.  Rather, there is one main singer (I think David) with the other guys singing fairly standard backing vocals.

The whole Ep has a kind of raspy-voiced-folk rock exploration feel.  The first song “Good Song” still has some mandolin, but only sparsely and the chorus melody sounds so much like another song or songs that I can’t get past it

“Surround” has a bit more of that Darlingside feel–the music is a bit more esoteric.  But the vocals are the same–that raspy-voiced lead singer.

But each song gets more interesting.  “Malea” has more of that cool violin and some really good drumming.  There’s definitely flashes of greatness on this EP, including in this song–although they need to bring in some of that cool vocal stuff.

“Catbird Seat” has some lovely violin and great whispered vocals.

“All That Wrong” starts almost a capella with some quiet guitar. It builds slowly until the middle section with the fast guitar and mandolin and the squeaky violin solo which is awesome.

“In the Morning” ends the disc with a quiet vocal melody but it eventually adds more singers and starts to sound more and more like the Darlingside we know.  In part because the drumming is left out almost entirely.  It feels like with three more songs they’d be on the verge of creating Birds Say.  But not yet.

[READ: January 22, 2018] “If Told Correctly”

I think the reason for William’s constantly publication is that it is so easy to fit at least one, or even more of them into a space in a magazine.  Got a small column to fill?  Grab 7 Williams stories.

This is a collection of five such stories

None of This Would Have Been Remotely Feasible
This story begin with the narrator admitting that she is smart and likes jokes.  So this is suitable for certain people.  The police found her in a pile of snow saying she didn’t want to live anymore.  Her mother saved her life. “This morning I was walking toward a tree… A woman was crying Melba! Melba!”  Perhaps it is a dog, that’s what we’re led to believe.  The last sentence is just a random jumble of words: “After a pause I looked into the world but I never found those.”  What? Continue Reading »

Posted in Darlingside, Diane Williams, Flash Fiction, Funny (strange), Futility, Harper's, Huh? | Leave a Comment »

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