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Max–Vapor (2014)

April 12, 2018 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: LARA BELLO-Tiny Desk Concert #728 (April 10, 2018).

I was quite taken with the instrumentation on this Tiny Desk Concert.  Although Lara Bello sings in Spanish and the main instrument is flamenco guitar, the addition of the clarinet (Jay Rattman), was a real treat.  It was a sweet surprise in the beginning of the first song “Nana de Chocolate y Leche” and then it was like the addition of a new culture in the main body of the song when it had a more klezmer sound.

I love the percussion that Arturo Stable is playing.  In addition to the box drum, he’s got a wooden bowl with clattering stuff in it that he is manipulating with his foot.

I’m glad to note that the instrumentation was a deliberate choice and an eccentric one:

Lara Bello occupies the space between genres where magic happens. Born in Spain, she was raised with not only Spanish traditions like flamenco and canto but also pop music and jazz. The instrumentation she assembled for her Tiny Desk reflects that elastic approach to genre: acoustic classical guitar, clarinet, violin and a percussionist who didn’t keep time so much as color the proceedings.

None of this should detract from the amazing work of Eric Kurimski on guitar. It’s only about midway through the first song that you realize that all of the music that’s not clarinet or violin is coming from him.

Bello says that “Nana de Chocolate y Leche” is a lullaby for her friend who had twin babies one born with skin more the color of chocolate and one with skin more the color of milk. The na na na section was a lot of fun and felt like it could be any language especially as that section seems to drift every so slightly from flamenco.

“Suave” (soft) is about a butterfly that wants to reach the moon.  It opens with a beautiful violin (Janet Sora Chung) melody and a delicate clarinet addition.  The middle section of just guitar and violin is gorgeous.  I love hearing her sing the word “suave” at the end of the song.

“Sola” means “on my own” and is dedicated to everyone who has fallen deep and had to learn again how to fly again and once they did it, they flew higher.  It’s a pretty song with an extended clarinet solo.

After just three albums, Bello has become a noteworthy presence in the community of Spanish musicians who deftly mix jazz, classical and other traditions from Spain. That world can seem like a secret society to those who don’t understand Spanish, but you’ll see during Bello’s performances that the lyrics double as another flight of exploration as they float like wisps of smoke through the sonic spaces carved out by her collaborators.

[READ: January 2, 2018] Vapor

Max is an illustrator from Spain (his full name is Max Bardin).

I really enjoy Max’s works.  Although not too many have been translated into English (this was translated by Carol Gnojewski), his visuals are pretty striking and “simple” and are easy to enjoy even if you can’t read the words (usually of dialog).

Max’s stories and pictures are usually pretty surreal.  I enjoy his pictures as much as the stories, although the stories are often quite funny and enjoyable even if they don’t always make perfect sense.  The fact thar the epigram is from Dinosaur Jr is pretty awesome: “I feel the pain of everyone / and then I feel nothing”

The main character of this story is a man with a crazily long, boomerang-shaped nose. He is lying in a desert saying he feels like he is floating.  Up walks a cat with a similarly large nose.  The cat says the man is just hungry.  The man says he is not.  The cat asks if he’s one of those self-righteous people.  The man says no, he is just looking for meaning.  The cat asks if he means God.  “No , God is only a contaminated and infectious idea.  I don’t pursue ideas, I seek experiences.”

Then he goes on to talk about Absolute and Transparent things, vacancy, silence, paradoxes. Continue Reading »

Posted in Carol Gnojewski, Cyclops, Death, Dinosaur Jr., Foreign Books, Graphic Novel, Herbert E. Crowley, Lara Bello, Max, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation | Leave a Comment »

Protect Yourself: Venereal Disease Posters of World War II (2014)

April 11, 2018 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: RHYE-Tiny Desk Concert #727 (April 9, 2018).

Rhye is one of those bands that the guys on All Songs Considered just love.  But I find that his songs are completely insubstantial from his delicate falsetto to the restrained music.  It just puts me to sleep.

As such:

It seemed only fitting that when Rhye performed the band’s Tiny Desk Concert that it be at night, illuminated by flickering light. The music Mike Milosh sings and writes conjures the evening and a swaying, romantic vibe.

It was five years ago nearly to the day that we filmed Rhye by candlelight in New York City as the band toured for its enigmatic album Woman. Mike Milosh requested that Rhye’s members be filmed “only in silhouette, with the lights dimmed low” at Le Poisson Rouge show.

This time around the hundred or so flickering lights set the tone for the sextet of strings, keyboard, guitar, bass and drums to perform music from 2018’s Blood. The sound is warm and velvety, all the instruments gently pulsing, as Mike Milosh softly sings with that high-pitched yearn.

Tiny Desk Concerts are often awkward by nature — bands playing in the middle of an office in the daytime for musicians used to playing in the evening, with stage lighting. But there was a special transformation that took place at this Tiny Desk the moment the music kicked in. I’m a sucker for a vibe in music — that feeling when a sound completely shifts the mood of a room. This vibe was more like a house show than an office, which put me in a pensive, pleasant place. Sit back and enjoy.

“Please” is just so soft that it seems to float away.  The only cool parts are the guitar and bass lines.

“Taste” I like the instrumentation of this song, especially the violin and bowed upright cello.  And when the guitar solo comes out its like the loudest thing you’ve ever heard (in comparison). But when you think the song is over it’s still got about 5 more minutes of blandness to go.

“Song For You” is seven minutes of slow moodiness.  I like the trombone solo.  And the end is very pretty.   In fact, most of the songs are pretty if they were either shorter or if those songs were actually just the ending of a song.  Otherwise it’s all kind of samey.

[READ: January 5, 2018] Protect Yourself

This short book looks at the brief history of venereal disease posters that were created during WWII.  It was edited by Ryan Mungia with an essay by Jim Heimann.

The essay has the great title “VD posters: propaganda to the penis” is short.  Mostly this is just a collection of posters.

The premise is that commanders have had to fight venereal disease and the enemy simultaneously.  During WWI, 18,000 American military personnel were incapacitated with sexually transmitted diseases each day!  By WWII it was reduced to about 600 per day.

Protection certainly helped and graphic posters were there to spread the word. Continue Reading »

Posted in #ITMFA, #RESIST, Arthur Szyk, Ben Sahn, David Stone, Glen Grohe, Jim Heimann, John Atherton, Marriage (Happy), Martin Blum, Military, Rhye, Ryan Mungia, Sex, Stan Lee, Tiny Desk Concert, War, World War I, World War II, WPA | Leave a Comment »

Boris Starling–Haynes Explains Americans: Owners’ Workshop Manual (2017)

April 10, 2018 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: DAN AUERBACH-Tiny Desk Concert #726 (April 4, 2018).

Everybody loves Dan Auerbach, but I’m just lukewarm on him.  I could never get into The Black Keys and the Arcs were okay.  I will say that I absolutely love the final song they play here today and didn’t realize it was him.  But I think I dislike the style of music he makes not the quality of the songs.

Dan brings his Easy Eye Sound Revue to the Tiny Desk. It’s an abundance of gifted musicians who have all played with a long, long list of legends, including Elvis, Don Williams and John Prine. …  The small band for this stripped-down version of the “Revue” is fleshed with Dante Schwebel on guitar and Russ Pahl’s resonator guitar sounds.

Midway through the four-song set (that includes tunes from his 2017 album Waiting on a Song), Dan introduces a powerhouse: the seasoned but relatively unknown blues-and-soul singer Robert Finley. The husky voiced gentleman, with a giant smile and magical charisma, is heart-winning and heart-warming. It’s remarkable that this legally blind singer is only now getting the attention he deserves….  Robert Finley and Dan Auerbach released [an album] at the end of 2017 called Goin’ Platinum.

In the recent Tiny Desk Concert from fellow Nashville musician John Prine, [he told a tale] of writing songs with Pat McLaughlin in the morning, going to town for some meatloaf and then recording the song by day’s end. Well that’s Pat on the mandolin here in this Tiny Desk set. His playing is both astonishing and low-key.

The Review plays four songs

“Waiting On a Song” is a folk song with a country feel and a slide guitar solo on that resonator guitar.

“Never In My Wildest Dreams” feels like an old cowboy song complete with what is almost cowboy yodelling from Schwebel.

“Get It While You Can” features Robert Finley on vocals.  It is the traditional song and Finley does a great job, singing with gusto and making clear some lyrics that I never heard before.  His voice is pretty great too.

“Shine On Me”  This song is irresistible even if it sounds exactly like a Travelling Wilbury song.

It’s just a matter of time before he hits on a genre that I really like, I’m sure.

[READ: January 5, 2018] Haynes Explains Americans

This book came across my desk and it looked pretty funny.

There was no author name on the cover, but inside it mentions that it is written by Boris Starling.  I’d never heard of him, but I looked him up and found that he has written seven crime novels and that his first, Messiah, was notable for its fast pace and high levels of gore.  He has written a bunch of other stuff too, including several (at least 12) of the popular ‘Haynes Explains’ series of tongue-in-cheek mini-manuals.

So this is written as a manual (based on a stripdown and rebuild).

It is written very much like a car manual: “the aim of this manual is to help you get the best value from the American.”  It includes lots of pictures of car parts with labels for other things.  It’s a good mockery of the manuals .

Normally I enjoy a good mockery of Americanisms.  We are ripe for parody.  But this book feels just too easy. Continue Reading »

Posted in Baseball, Basketball, Boris Starling, Dan Auerbach, Food, Football, Funny (ha ha), John Prine, Language, Manuals, South, Sports, The Arcs, The Black Keys, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfunny | Leave a Comment »

Camille Bordas–“The State of Nature” (New Yorker, April 9, 2018)

April 9, 2018 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: NILÜFER YANYA-“Baby Luv” NPR’S SOUTH X LULLABY (April 6, 2018). 

Sometimes I wonder if I should automatically know a featured artist. So it’s comforting when you find out that an artist is “relatively new” like Nilüfer Yanya.

For our final lullaby recording during South by Southwest 2018, we meet the London-based singer Nilüfer Yanya for her performance in the memory-filled world of Uncommon Objects. It’s a shop in Austin, Texas dedicated to sentimental curiosities of a world gone by. With that in mind, the relatively new musician with a bright future tackles a tune about something old and familiar: fond memories overwhelmed by the pain of love gone wrong.

“Baby Luv” can be found on Nilüfer Yanya’s 2018 release Do You Like Pain?. The EP’s title is a line she repeats multiple times on “Baby Luv,” while her choppy guitar punctuates a weary, clock-like rhythm. That ticking beat is then amplified by the saxophone of her bandmate, Jazzi Bobbi while a camera pans a literary world of books that all seem blood-red. Objects once shiny and proud are worn and somewhat torn, with a future as uncertain as the love in this song.

The song is a simple up and down melody with her startlingly staccato singing style–in which words are somewhat audible but not always clear.  Like the strange, repeated chant of gain again again.

I love that Jazzi Bobbi is visible, but how on first viewing, you gloss over her as she sort of blends in with the curios.  It’s when her sax comes in that you realize she’s there.  In fact it’s her sax that is the most compelling part of this song.  It’s the strangely amorphous notes that seems to burst from nowhere that are more compelling that the repeated guitar.

[READ: April 5, 2018] “The State of Nature”

I enjoyed Bordas’ previous story quite a lot.  I loved how it was structured and the surprising twists it had.

This one was also enjoyable but for different reasons.  It opens with the narrator admitting to us that she had slept through a burglary.  A cop asked if she was unemployed since she was napping on Thursday afternoon.

She tells them that she is an ophthalmologist  with a varied schedule who can sleep through just about anything.

A varied assortment of things were stolen–a rug, some jewelry and an optometrist case.  It was quite old and has sentimental value (she told the cops).  An average person wouldn’t have thought much of it but it could have fetched about $1,200.

When she returned to her apartment her cat, Catapult, seemed to be vocally distressed.  She believes the cat is sad because her favorite napping place is now gone: “You could have summoned some of that bitchiness earlier, when they came to steal your bed.” Continue Reading »

Posted in Advice, Camille Bordas, Cats, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Futility, New Yorker, Nilüfer Yanya, Short Story, Thieves, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert | Leave a Comment »

Eric Nylund–The Resisters (2011) [audiobook 2012–Peter Berkrot]

April 8, 2018 by Paul Debraski

[LISTENED TO: September 30, 2017] The Resisters

I saw this audio book at the library and thought it might be a fun book for a long car trip.  It turned out the family wasn’t going on one for a while, but Clark and I were heading to Hartford for the Pokémon Regional Championship, and this was just about the right length for the trip.

I was turned off by the cover–that very computerized version of the kids.  Although I see that Nylund writes books in the Halo series, (and has an interesting history writing for Microsoft, go figure).  So I guess it makes sense that there’s a computer edge to it.

The story wastes no time opening and doesn’t wait for you to catch up.

Ethan Blackwood is twelve and, as the book opens, he is in the last few seconds of a very important soccer match.  But, with no explanation given , we learn that this soccer match is not what we are used to.  All of the competitors are wearing large armored suits and the ball can hit speeds of 300 MPH.  Ethan is a year younger than his teammates, but he has proven himself on many occasions and they all look to him for a great play. Continue Reading »

Posted in Aliens, Audiobooks, Children's Books, Eric Nylund, Peter Berkrot, Pokemon, Sci-fi, Soccer, The Future, The Odd Couple | Leave a Comment »

Gene Luen Yang & Mike Holmes–Secret Coders: Robots & Repeats (2017)

April 7, 2018 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: ROBIN OLSON-Tiny Desk Concert #724 (April 1, 2018).

Because the blurb is perfect, I am including it in it’s entirety.

“Not all pianists are created in equal temperament,” Robin Olson told a small but enthusiastic audience behind NPR Music’s storied Tiny Desk. The pianist, hailed as an “avant-garde gewandhaus” by Berlin’s Staubzeitung, is as celebrated for his cryptic maxims as he is for his inscrutable music.

Olson’s trademark style — shooting clusters of shimmering chords and solitary, pearlescent pitches into reverberant space — has led him to exalted concert halls and to work with a broad array of stars such as Yuja Wang, Aretha Franklin, Chick Corea and Emanuel Ax.

Drawing from the seminal Plink technique, cultivated among the Schlammstadt School of composers in the 1950s, Olson is regarded as a leading technician of the more expansive Neo-Plink style. “Intervals have coincident partials,” Olson explains. “They create a form of dissonance, called ‘beats,’ by which pitches are set for optimum harmonicity.”

From a bulging briefcase, Olson pulls out any number tools to alter specific pitches, as in his opening piece, “A 440.” He threads ribbons of felt between piano strings to mimic the muted cries of the Asian dung beetle in “The Temperament,” from his 2014 collection Infinite Chasms.

Olson surprised everyone at the Tiny Desk by debuting a new piece, “Tuning the Bass,” wherein his inventive command of the instrument’s lower register highlighted spaces between keening dark octaves.

He may be considered a challenging artist, but Olson, through the essential humanity of his performance, reveals the efforts of almost any other living pianist to be little more than a joke.

Set List

  • “A 440”
  • “The Temperament”
  • “Tuning the Bass”

I only wish I had seen this before the Editor’s Note revealed that it was an (excellent) April Fool’s joke.

[READ: December 27, 2017] Secret Coders: Robots & Repeats

Secret Coders 3 ended with a puzzle.  And I guessed wrong!  How embarrassing.  I see what I did wrong, but I still would have failed. I have a hard time with binary, too.

Anyhow, this book reveals some pretty amazing details about the ongoing story.

After selecting the correct door, the gang finds a floating triangle thing.  We learn that Professor Bee is not actually from this planet (okay now things are getting pretty weird, I must admit).   But he dismisses that (what??) so the kids can code some more using a construct made of “solidified light” which is pretty cool, although perhaps not as cool as an alien. Continue Reading »

Posted in April Fool's Day, Children's Books, Fears, First Second :01, Gene Luen Yang, Graphic Novel, Mike Holmes, Robin Olson, Robots, Science, Series, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Technology, Threats, Unfinished series | Leave a Comment »

Brad Watson–“Visitation” (New Yorker, April 6, 2009)

April 6, 2018 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER-Tiny Desk Concert #725 (April 2, 2018).

It’s fascinating to read about singers who have been around for a long time about whose names I have never heard before.

Dee Dee Bridgewtaer is such a singer.  Sadly, this blurb, while very informative, doesn’t say anything about her career.  So I don’t know how long she has been singing or what she actually sings.  Although it does say what her new record is about.

When she was just three years old, her family moved from Memphis, Tennessee, to Flint, Michigan. Years later, Bridgewater could still hear the soul sounds of Memphis on WDIA, the first radio station in America programmed entirely by African-Americans for African-Americans. She recalled, “I could catch it when I was in Flint as a teenager and I would listen to it after 11:00 at night, because that was the only time I could get it — when all the other stations were off the air. I know it was real, ’cause I went through it and these were all songs I heard on WDIA.”

Bridgewater, now 67, brought three of these songs to the Tiny Desk: First, is the celebrated blues hit, “Hound Dog,” first recorded by not by Elvis Presley but by Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton in 1952. What makes this presentation special is not only Bridgewater’s sultry and soulful interpretation, but her adorable Daisy, perhaps the cutest “Hound Dog” to ever bless this song.

Bridgewater’s version is great and really puts a different spin on the song if you’re used to the Elvis version.  It’s much more sassy and gives you a sense of what the song was really about a lot more than the standard version.  There’s a cool slide guitar solo too.

Before the next song, she says, “I’ve watched the Tiny Desk before but I’ve never seen this many people.”

Then she explains what this song is about:

The first lines of the next tune will quite actually send chills down your spine. Bridgewater and backup singers Sharisse Norman and Shontelle Norman-Beatty’s close harmonic voicings add a spiritual dimension to the already hallowed song. “Why (Am I Treated So Bad)?” was written by Roebuck “Pops” Staples in response to the harassment of the Little Rock Nine, brave students who decided they had the right to attend an all-white Arkansas high school in 1957.

Their version is excellent and powerful.  The backing vocalists add so much to this song.  There’s also a cool keyboard solo that’s kind of under-documented.

Last here is “B.A.B.Y.” Bridgewater recorded this song and the entire album in Memphis’ historic Royal Studios and told NPR this story, “I stepped outside of the studio right after they started mixing ‘B.A.B.Y.’ and I said a prayer. I said, ‘God I need a sign, that I’m moving in the right direction because I am stepping completely away from jazz music.'” Before Bridgewater could get back into the studio to record the next track she got a surprise visit from Carla Thomas, the Memphis soul queen herself and daughter of Rufus Thomas, influential entertainer, singer-songwriter and former WDIA radio DJ. It was a true return to her Memphis roots, a memorable and beautiful moment for Bridgewater.

The song has a sweet soul sound with the addition of horns.  Bridgewater’s voice is perfect for this song and the other songs, too.  I don’t know what Bridgewater’s other songs sound like but she seems perfectly suited to these.

[READ: April 12, 2016] “Visitation”

This is the story of a man, Loomis, who has made many bad relationship choices and who is now stuck realizing that he is not only not a great father but also stuck in a horrible situation with regard to his son.

Loomis and his wife separated and she moved with their son to Southern California.  Since then, he’d flown out (it doesn’t say from where) every three weeks.  He would go for three to five days and stay in the same hotel each time.  He hated the crappy hotel but his son liked it, so he continued to go there, even as he noticed it got worse with each visit.

His wife and son lived in the basement of an ex-marine’s house.  The marine hated him even though they had never been introduced.  Whenever he would visit, his wife would be sure to not be around.

Their hotel stay is pretty bad.  The boy watches anime while Loomis fixes himself a drink. Continue Reading »

Posted in Dee Dee Bridgewater, Hotels, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Parenting, Short Story, Surreal, Tiny Desk Concert, WDIA 1010 AM--Memphis Tennessee | Leave a Comment »

Screaming Females (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, March 5, 2018)

April 5, 2018 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: April 5, 2018] Screaming Females

It’s ironic, I suppose, that Screaming Females are a band from New Brunswick, NJ (not far from me) who apparently plays (or once played) lots of basement shows and unnamed clubs in that city, but I traveled all the way to Philly to see them for the first time.

I’m not the kind of person who gets invited to secret underground shows, and that’s fine.  I’ll happily see a band in a great venue with a rowdy crowd.

The focus in Screaming Females is centered on Maria Paternoster because she is a stellar guitarist and a compelling singer and front woman.  But we mustn’t forget King Mike Abbate on bass and Jarrett Dougherty on drums who have made up the band since the beginning.  All three were there in fine roaring form, working like a tight machine. Continue Reading »

Posted in New Brunswick, NJ, Philadelphia, PA, Screaming Females, Union Transfer | Leave a Comment »

Thou (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, March 5, 2018) [SCREAMING FEMALES]

April 5, 2018 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: April 5, 2018] Thou

I was unfamiliar with Thou before this show.  Reviews were pretty interesting so I was really intrigued to hear them.

Gregory Heaney from All Music wrote “the band’s sound blends the shuddering heaviness of doom with the oppressive atmospherics of black metal, giving the band a monolithic sound that feels, at times, inescapable.”

And nothing could be more accurate.  Thou are loud.  Really loud.  I have seen Sunn O))) who are possibly the loudest band on the planet and Thou was more inescapable.  And I did not find it enjoyable, possibly because I was unprepared.

Musically the band is rather interesting.  They play heavy doom metal, but they have complex (and heavy) chords and riffs–sometimes with the bassist playing counterpoint.  Their riffs were slow, but the notes they played were not always the obvious choice.   Continue Reading »

Posted in Britney Spears, Philadelphia, PA, Screaming Females, Sunn O))), The Subdudes, Thou, Union Transfer | Leave a Comment »

+HIRS+ (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, April 5, 2018) [SCREAMING FEMALES]

April 5, 2018 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: April 5, 2018] +HIRS+

+HIRS+ (pronounced “heers”) is a collective. According to their website: “We are infinite and never ending. A collective of freaks and faggots that will never stop existing.” But mainly the band is made up of two semi-anonymous individuals, best friends JP on vocals and beats and Esem on guitar.

And their slogan is “LOOKS LIKE HELL. SOUNDS LIKE SHIT. QUEER AS FUCK.”

Incidentally, the band just released their first full length, which is currently streaming on NPR.  It is 14 minutes long–20 songs–and features guest contributions from Laura Jane Grace (Against Me!), Shirley Manson (Garbage), Marissa Paternoster (Screaming Females), Alice Bag and more.

Vice describes their set so aptly:

A quick listen to one of their songs – and it will be quick, as most of their tracks don’t stretch for longer than 30 seconds – will definitely do the trick: Sample from a movie. Heavy blastbeats. Fast and pounding guitar riffs. Screamed, mostly unintelligible vocals. Repeat. If you’re seeing them live, the typical +HIRS+ set will last maybe ten intensely chaotic, fun minutes.

That’s a lot of talk for a set that lasted no more than 15 minutes.  But their set was one of the most incredible things I’ve seen. Continue Reading »

Posted in +HIRS+, Against Me!, Alice Bag, Garbage, Major Lazer, Philadelphia, PA, Robin, Rock duo, Screaming Females, Union Transfer, Vice | Leave a Comment »

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