June 18, 2013 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: KANYE WEST “Bound 2” (2013).
I dislike Kanye West. He strikes me as a colossal ass. So I was shocked how much I really liked his last album. In addition to great melodies, I liked how audacious it was. And now he has a new album (with no cover apparently) and this new single.
The song samples Brenda Lee (of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” fame) Ponderosa Twins Plus 1 and has no actual beats. And the amazing thing is that Kanye does his own thing—his own particular form of rapping—over the repeated do wop sample “Bound to Fall in Love.” (That’s the Ponderosa Twins). It’s not quite right—his flow doesn’t quite follow the melody that‘s playing. And of course, this old school sweet song has “I wanna fuck you hard in the sink” rapped over it. There are times when it sounds like he is rapping despite the song that is playing along—as if someone was playing it and he had to fight to be heard over it.
I respect how contrary the song is. Especially when a new nicely sung part comes across—it may be a sample (Charlie Wilson), I’m not sure, but it comes out of nowhere and brings in a beautiful melody. And it is interrupted mid flow as well. The whole song feels like pieces thrown on top of each other. And after two or three listens it starts to make sense.
Kanye may be crazy, but he knows music. Ah ha, honey.
[READ: June 18, 2013] “An Inch and a Half of Glory”
When I saw that Hammett was the first author in this Fiction issue of the New Yorker, I automatically assumed that the stories would all be noir (especially since they all have a black and white cover picture). Perhaps that was presumptuous as I have never read Hammett before, (although he is known for his detective stories). But indeed, this story isn’t noir at all. Nor is there any detective work involved. It seems tied to the issue by virtue of his name, not the actual story (which had not been published before).
The story is simple enough, There’s a fire on the second floor of a building,. A crowd has gathered to watch and wait for the firemen. Then someone notices a small child in the third floor window. The child isn’t afraid and there aren’t any flames yet so the people kind of just watch the kid and say that the firemen will be along any second. But when a woman in the crowd chastises the men for not helping the baby, the men as a group (7 or 8 of them) charge into the building.
They hear sirens almost immediately and they all leave. Except for Earl Parish. Parish decides that he is going to do something about this. Even though he knows the other men will be mad at him for continuing on when they all left. Then he changes his mind, but he knows he can’t leave now…now that he has stayed. So he plunges onward, finding the boy and bringing him out to safety.
The next day in an inch and a half column, he is referred to by name as having saved the boy from the fire. Continue Reading »
Posted in Adventure, Brenda Lee, Charlie Wilson, Dashiell Hammett, Kanye West, New Yorker, Ponderosa Twins Plus 1, Short Story, Threats | Leave a Comment »
June 17, 2013 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: STONE GOSSARD-“I Need Something Different” (2013).
Stone Gossard is the rhythm guitarist for Pearl jam. He’s also one of their major songwriters. He has one or two songs that he sings with the band. This is a solo effort which indicates that he might be a heavier influence on the band.
Stone Gossard last released a solo album 12 years ago. There’s a new Pearl Jam album in progress and Stone’s other band Brad put out an album not too long ago, so why not release a solo album?
I don’t know how much Gossard does on this song, but I rather imagine he plays everything (the solo is fine but not amazing and the drums are solid but don’t really standout). And while that sounds dismissive, it’s not meant to be. Gossard creates a solid sound of simple rock.
The guitars are loud and bouncy. Stone’s voice is rough and workmanlike—there’s a reason he’s not a lead singer. But his voice works great for this aggressive slice of rock.
The riff is continuous and non stop, while he sings I need something different. And then at the mid way part the keyboards start—perhaps this is the something different. The keys break the propulsion with a poppiness that you wouldn’t expect in the song.
Then the song returns to its original style. It’s not a terribly original song, but it would be a fun bar anthem.
[READ: June 10, 2013] Speak, Commentary
When this book first came out I was pretty delighted. What a funny concept—overblown writers and political pundits do DVD commentary about films they had nothing to do with. It seemed like it would be very funny indeed.
And here’s the thing. It is. For a few pages. But each one of these things feels as long as the actual movie they are commenting on. Alexander and Bissell have done their research—they know what these figures will say. And say. And say.
As I said the premise is awesome, check out these wonderful combinations:
- NOAM CHOMSKY & HOWARD ZINN on The Fellowship of the Ring
ANN COULTER & DINESH D’SOUZA on Aliens
- TERRY DWIBBLE & STEVEN McCRAY on Start Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
- JERRY FALWELL & PAT ROBERTSON on Planet of the Apes (1968)
WILLIAM BENNETT & DICK CHENEY on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
[Terry Dwibble & Steven McCray are (presumably) fictional characters—die hard Trekkies who are thrilled to be able to add this commentary and, frankly, this is the best one of these pieces.]
I think part of the problem with the book is the sequencing. The first piece is incredibly dry. I recall reading this when I first got it. I don’t know if I read all the way through Chomsky and Zinn. And I know I didn’t make it through all of the second one (Coulter and D’Souza)—my d0g eared page failure still lingers to this day.
But I finished this time. Continue Reading »
Posted in Aliens, Anachronisms, Brad, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Jeff Alexander, Lord of the Rings, McSweeney's, Pearl Jam, Planet of the Apes, Political Humor, Religion, Short Books, Star Trek, Star Wars, Stone Gossard, Tom Bissell, Violence, War | Leave a Comment »
June 16, 2013 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: THE POSTAL SERVICE-“A Tattered Line of String” (2013).
I enjoyed The Postal Service record but I wasn’t as big of a Death Cab for Cutie fan at the time. Now, having enjoyed DCFC so much in the last couple of years, this song sounds much more like a DCFC song but with keyboards (Ben’s voice is so distinctive).
This song has been released with the reissue of the Postal Service album. It’s not on the original but it also sounds like it might be a remix (the skittery backing vocals make me think remix).
Either way this is a supremely catchy song (Gibbard knows from melody) and when you throw the keyboards and dancey beats on it, it’s even more poppy than DCFC’s stuff. I wonder why the album wasn’t bigger when it came out.
[READ: April 21, 2013] “Valentine”
Tessa Hadley has written another story that I enjoyed–with that same quaint feeling of love in 1970s England.
The story opens with the narrator Stella and her friend Madeleine waiting at the bus stop. They are fifteen, have never kissed boys, and think about nothing else (especially since they go to an all girls school). Madeleine is willowy with long curls a “kitten face” and “luscious breasts” while Stella is small, plump and shapeless.
As they wait for the bus, Valentine approaches (yes I though the title was about the day not a person). He is in school as well but he is new to them. Valentine has just moved to the area from Malaya. And, as he sizes them up, offering them each a smoke, when it comes down to it, amazingly, he chooses Stella.
She likes him because he is different as she is different–they are clearly soulmates. While her parents (well, Gerry is her stepdad) don’t ‘t approve of him (his hair, his dress, his attitude). He barely talks to her parents when they interrogate him and then he imitates their voices when they are alone. Regardless of what others thought or really, because if it, they are soon hanging out all the time. And soon he is her boyfriend. And soon enough she had lost weight (because all they did was talk and smoke), they died their hair black (a proto-goth in the hippie 70s) and they basically began to look alike. Continue Reading »
Posted in Ben Gibbard, Boredom, Cigarettes, Communists, Death Cab For Cutie, Drugs, New Yorker, Romance, Sex, Short Story, Tessa Hadley, The Postal Service, Virginity (Loss of) | Leave a Comment »
June 15, 2013 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: THE SMITH WESTERNS-“3AM Spiritual” (2013).
This album is currently streaming on NPR. It is a sweet acoustic pop album with elements of retro electric guitar sounds. It has lots of elements that I recognize (name any folkie power pop band and you can hear them in here). But the biggest element here is The Beatles–later period Beatles–especially on the instrumental break of this song.
It opens with jangly guitars and a falsetto vocal (with lots of ah ha has at the end of the verses). There’s a soft keyboard and some wooooah yeashs. So far so good.
At the two-minute mark the song gets much bigger–the “whoa yeahs” get louder and there’s a guitar break which lasts for a few measures and which seems like the song will be ending (it is a power pop song after all). But the chord changes and the song stops and the pizzicato piano comes in. And it’s followed by that fuzzed out classic rock guitar solo sound. All of which is brief enough to keep the listener guessing while the song swings back into some Whoa Yeahs until it ends.
It’s a simple pop song, but it has enough going on to not be completely obvious.
[READ: April 21, 2013] “The Judge’s Will”
I read this awhile back and never posted on it. So here it is.
This is the story of a judge and the women in his life. He has survived a second heart attack but knows he is not long for the world. The judge is married, but he has been keeping a woman on the side for twenty-five years. And she is concerned for her future–he has always taken care of her but she has no legal rights. He has ensured that she will be okay in his will, but he is afraid that his wife and son will cause trouble when the time came.
His wife Binny did not react at all when he told her of his multi-decade infidelity–she acted like it was idle gossip. But she did share the news with her son Yasi. They knew the judge wouldn’t leave everything to the other woman. The judge is rather surprised by this reaction and indeed, it proves to be false.
When the judge went back to the hospital, he called on Yasi and asked him to bring things to the other woman. Which he did–although he says he left as soon as he could. When the judge returns home, he asks Yasi to bring the other woman, Phul, to their house. Binny was upset, but accepted the news. Continue Reading »
Posted in All Songs Considered, Jealousy, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Short Story, The Beatles, The Smith Westerns | Leave a Comment »
June 14, 2013 by Paul Debraski
[LISTENED TO: June 7, 2013] Hard Magic
My sister-in-law Karen raved about this book and then gave it to me for Christmas. And holy cow. I. LOVED. IT.
And before I even get into the story I have to say that a major reason why I loved it is because of the reader–Bronson Pinchot. Yes, Balki from Perfect Strangers. Yes, that goofy “foreigner” from the show has an utterly mesmerizing speaking voice. It is amazingly deep–when he first started speaking the menacing drawl of Jake Sullivan, I was blown away. And then he pulled out a couple dozen more characters, women and men–German, Japanese, Okies, military men, New Yorkers. He brought this story to absolutely real life.
I have made a point of looking for anything else that he reads (although I see that he mostly reads books about war (which is not my thing))–but I see a Flannery O’Connor in there and–YES–he reads book two of the Grimnoir series (called Spellbound) and it’s already out!
Okay enough about Pinchot. No, not enough. He was stellar!
Okay, now enough. What’s the story about? Well, the best thing is that the story itself is also amazing. It is set in the 1930s, in an alternate reality Untied States. And in this reality, random people have been gifted with magic. And there’s all kinds of magic–fades (people who can walk through walls); torches (people who can make and stop fires), mouths (people who can put thoughts in your head); brutes (people who are crazy strong and who can actually bend gravity to their will) and movers (people who can jump from place to place). There’s also healers and cursers and cogs–really smart people–and other with more mysterious powers.
Each chapter opens with a quote from a real (in our world) person talking about how the magic or the people with magic–the Actives–impacted society. So Einstein was a cog, and military leaders used brutes to fight in wars, etc. Continue Reading »
Posted in Alternate Reality, Audiobooks, Bronson Pinchot, Death, Decadence, Drinking, End of the World, Fantasy, Flannery O'Connor, Gangsters, Larry Correia, Noir, Oddities, Perfect Strangers, Steampunk, Supernatural, Technology | 3 Comments »
June 13, 2013 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: CHANCE THE RAPPER-“Juice” & “NaNa”(2013).
NPR has raved about Chance the Rapper, both at SXSW and now with Acidrap as one of their favorite albums of 2013.
Chance the Rapper has a couple of different vocals styles (kind of Jamaican, kind of falsetto, also a deeper voice) and his lyrics are crazily all over the place.
I have no idea what “Juice” is about (I’m not hip to the slang, man), and of the two I like that one less. “NaNa” is just crazy fun–it’s got a great bass riff–weird and all over the place, like slow funk. He sounds more Jamaican here, and the lyrics are just nutty
In terms of rap, his style is quite different–fun and weird (there’s a lot of laughing during “Juice”). The chorus of “NaNa” is a kind of whine and taunt. And various things keep interrupting the song (is that part of the video or the song? I don’t know). And by the end, the song keeps telling him (or us) to shut up.
It has a feel like Childish Gambino, which i like. And I like that he’s doing something different. I suspect with a few listens this could be a great mixtape. You can get the whole thing for free at his website.
[READ: June 9, 2013] “Thirteen Wives”
I’ve read a number of Millhauser stories before, although I don’t recall if I generally like him or not. (hmm, it seems that I do).
This story seemed more like an exercise or a challenge—can I write about 13 different women and given them all different characteristics. For indeed, that is what the story is. The narrator explains that he has 13 wives and they are all equal in his eyes. After some perfunctory explanation about how this works, he sets out to describe them all.
And then we get the 13 one-dimensional women that he has married and the one defining characteristic about her (the one who is always in sync with him, the one who is submissive, the one who is bitchy, etc).
And really that’s all there is to it. Continue Reading »
Posted in All Songs Considered, Chance the Rapper, Childish Gambino, Marriage (Happy), New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, Steven Millhauser | Leave a Comment »
June 12, 2013 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: DEAFHEAVEN-“Dream House” (2013).
NPR’s Lars Gotrich always picks songs that I like–even if I would never have found them any other way.
His favorite album of the year so far is by this band Deafheaven whom I have never heard of. The song is 9 minutes long and it combines big loud guitars, super fast crashing drums, and cookie monster vocals (mixed so low in the mix that they almost sound just like noise–a neat trick). The waves and layers of sound give it a kind of My Bloody Valentine feel.
For the first half of the song, the drums are absolutely speed metal fast–pounding and pounding with wild cymbals. But they too are mixed low in the mix–setting a beat but not dominating the song. For really this song seems to be all about the guitar–which is not exactly playing along with them. Sure, there are fast moments, and the guitar is largely distorted and noisy. But the tone of the guitar is very bright–especially when he starts playing some simple but pretty riffs (amid the noise).
And then about half way through, the noise drops away and the music become quiet and pretty. Two guitars interweave slow melodies. Until the music crashes back in, but with a different tempo and a feeling like Explosions in the Sky or Mogwai.
I know many will be turned off by the vocals (I think I might even like it more if it were purely instrumental), but the way they are mixed, shows that the music is the dominant sound, and I can get behind that.
[READ: June 12, 2013] “Company Man”
I always enjoying reading a David Sedaris Personal History (interestingly I haven’t read all of his books—I seem to stick to the articles instead). This one is about having a guest room. He considers it a true sign of aging gracefully that his new house has a guest room (with its own bathroom).
Their previous house in Normandy had nothing of the sort and he gives typically humorous anecdotes about being embarrassed for the guests who don’t have any privacy in the bathroom (“we’ll be going out for about twenty minutes if you need anything.”) But now they have this new space.
Which means of course that they have guests. I enjoyed the part when Hugh’s friends come to visit–based on his father’s behaviors, David is allowed to leave in the middle of a conversation because he is not the one entertaining the guests). But the bulk of the second half concerns David’s family. Continue Reading »
Posted in All Songs Considered, David Sedaris, Deafheaven, Explosions in the Sky, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Mogwai, My Bloody Valentine, New Yorker, Travel | Leave a Comment »
June 11, 2013 by Paul Debraski
[ATTENDED: June 4, 2103] “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-Live at the Sands Bethlehem Event Center
I’ve seen “Weird Al” live four times now and I have never been disappointed by the show. The first year my friend Matt and I waited out by the bus and got the bands’ (minus Al’s) autograph. The second time we waited even longer and Al had an autograph (and picture taking) session in the theater after the show (how cool is that?). Two years ago Sarah and I went together (her first Al experience) and now for this show, Matt and his wife and son and Sarah and Clark and I all went together. And we had 8th row seats. Matt and his family hung around afterwards and got to meet him, but we took off (with a tired youngster). But next time… we’ll wait the extra 30 minutes.
I was marveling that when Sarah and I saw him in 2011, he had just started this tour (Alpocalypse had not yet come out). Here he is over two years later still touring this album. And, good for him. He changed the set list around a little bit (I’ve never understood how bands could play the exact same songs night after night) but the biggies are all there.
Comparing the sets, it’s cool to see how many different older songs he threw in the mix, and of course the great cover of “Radio Radio” (Elvis Costello). This was a totally faithful cover of the song and I just learned from Wikipedia that he plays this as a tribute to Costello’s 1977 appearance on Saturday Night Live (it’s a long but fairly interesting story). It turns out that whenever Al has a computer malfunction he says, “I’m sorry ladies and gentlemen there’s no reason to do this song here. “Radio Radio” (watch the Elvis video here). Continue Reading »
Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Bethlehem, PA, Sands Bethlehem Event Center | Leave a Comment »
June 10, 2013 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: DJ KOZE-“Track ID Anyone?” (2013).
This album was selected as one of NPR’s favorite of 2013 (so far). I really don’t know what to make of it. It opens with what sounds like a massage going on–there’s talk of things feeling good. And then the music kicks in, or shambles in.
The main riff is weird and stifled, awkward. But in a way that’s hard to look away from. Then after almost 3 minutes of a 5 minute song the vocals come in. They are quiet and harmonied.
The write up of the album says that it is quirky and compelling. It’s definitely quirky, I’m not entirely sure ho compelling it is. I was really intrigued where a song with that opening would go, but I wasn’t really that excited by the route it took to get there,
[READ: June 10, 2013] “We Didn’t Like Him”
This was a fascinating story about the growth of a bully named Manshu. The narrator (I honestly couldn’t tell the gender of the narrator—I assumed it was a girl until much later when I changed my mind. Actually I see now that the opening says “boys his own age” so I guess the narrator is a boy, but it was never really explicit) is embarrassed by Manshu. Manshu is “my father’s sister’s husband’s sister’s son” and as such, he is “family” with the narrator. But Manshu doesn’t play with boys his own age—he plays with the younger kids (like the narrator) and he always beats them—in whatever. For example, in cricket he would keep batting all day.
There was some degree of sympathy for Mansu because his father died when Manshu was six and his mother had diabetes, but he was still a pain. Then Manshu’s mother unexpectedly died. And Manshu changed. He lived with the narrator’s aunt’s husband who did not like him. Manshu became quiet and, if possible, spiritual.
The rest of the story concerns Manshu’s spirituality and the community’s temple. The narrator’s father was on the committee which oversaw the temple and when their current pandit, Gaurji, was deemed to be doing an insufficient job at the temple, he was kicked out and Manshu took over the position. Of course, there were cries of nepotism, but Manshu seemed to be very holy now.
Until he started to go seemingly against their Brahmin ways. Well, first he married a woman out of his caste. Then he started asking about how to get on TV. Then he started promising that praying in his temple could cure cancer. Continue Reading »
Posted in Akhil Sharma, All Songs Considered, Death, DJ Koze, New Yorker, Religion, Short Story | Leave a Comment »
June 9, 2013 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: IRON MAIDEN-Killers (1981).
Killers picks up right where Iron Maiden left off–indeed many of these songs were written at the same time as the first album. The difference is new guitarist Adrian Smith.
It opens with the great (but simple) instrumental “Ides of March” which segues into the blistering “Wrathchild.” And it’s on this song that you can tell some of the rawness has been removed from the recording. The guitars sound a wee bit more polished.
And you can tell the band are getting a bit more symphonic with the bass harmonics that intro the wonderful “Murders in the Rue Morgue” a song that feels long but actually isn’t. It has several parts that all seem to signal the end until Clive Burrs drums come pounding in to restart the song. Very cool. “Another Life” is another fast punky song, and while I like it, it is probably one of the weaker songs on the album. But that’s okay because it is followed by one of Maidens greatest instrumentals–“Genghis Khan” which has beautiful symphonic soaring solos over a cool propulsive beat.
“Innocent Exile” opens with another great noisy slappy bass riff that only Harris was doing at the time. “Killers” is a classic track: fast and yet complex, with a very cool riff. “Twilight Zone” sees Di’Anno reaching for higher more operatic notes. He makes it, but you can just tell that the band needs more from their vocalist. “Prodigal Son” opens with a pretty acoustic guitar intro. I used to like this song quite a bit (whatever Lamia is), but I can see that it’s actually quite long and meandering (maybe this one is more like “War Pigs”). It’s pretty but could probably be a bit shorter. “Purgatory” sounds like track off the first album–fast raw and punky with screaming riffs. “Drifter” ends the disc with a cool bass line and some more thrashing. It’s a solid ending for an album that overall works pretty well, but which kind of shows that the band had to either do something big on the next album or get stuck in a rut.
[READ: June 1, 2013] McSweeney’s #43
And with this issue I am almost all caught up with my McSweeney’s. More impressively, I read this one only a few days after receiving it!
This issues comes with two small books. And each book has a very cool fold-out/die cut cover (which is rather hard to close and which I was sure would get caught and therefore ripped on something but which hasn’t yet). The first is a standard collection of letters and stories and the second is a collection of fiction from South Sudan. Jointly they are a great collection of fiction and nonfiction, another solid effort from McSweeney’s.
Letters Continue Reading »
Posted in Adventure, Arid Gamal, Arranged Marriage, Avery Monsen, Biography, Catherine Lacey, Charles Baxter, David L. Lukudu, Death, Doogie Horner, Dreams, Drugs, Edward Eremugo Luka, Essays, Fears, Foreign Books, Funny (ha ha), Iron Maiden, John Oryem, Letters, LGBTQ, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, McSweeney's, Military, Nathan C. Martin, Noor Elashi, Nyuol Lueth Tong, Patrick Shaffner, Poetry, Political Humor, Rachel Sommerville, Samuel Garang Akau, Short Story, T.C. Boyle, Taban Lo Liyong, Thao Nguyen, Threats, Translation, Victor Lugala, Violence, War, William Wheeler | Leave a Comment »
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SOUNDTRACK: KANYE WEST “Bound 2” (2013).
I dislike Kanye West. He strikes me as a colossal ass. So I was shocked how much I really liked his last album. In addition to great melodies, I liked how audacious it was. And now he has a new album (with no cover apparently) and this new single.
I Just Read About That... 