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Dave Bidini–A Wild Stab for It: This is Game Eight from Russia (2012)

February 26, 2014 by Paul Debraski

wildstabSOUNDTRACK:RHEOSTATICS-The Nightlines Sessions (1998).

nightlinesI have mentioned this disc before, but having listened to some live shows from around this time, it made me want to check out this disc again.  I’ve always thought it was kind of a silly goof of a record without a lot to fully enjoy.  And while the goofy tracks stand out, there’s also a lot of really good music on it.

“The Pooby Song” opens the song and while it is a slight and silly song, it is a fun folky introduction.  What its title means is a mystery to me.  The second song is the first version of “The Junction Foil Ball,” a great track that would later get re-recorded for The Night of the Shooting Stars.  “Frank” is another interesting song with some cool scratchy guitars and a good riff. It doesn’t get played much live, but it could easily fit into their set.

“Majorca” is a pretty song from Tim, although it is very strange (to me) that these Canadians are singing about Majorca (a song they would play live in a few bootlegs).  Another vaguely silly song is the sitar (?) based “Ugly Manhattan,” which makes fun of Wall Street.  Perhaps the most unexpected song is “Trans Jam” a rap which features Farm Fresh and The Subliminal Kid.  It’s quite good, too.

And yes, there is a lot of really silly stuff.   “Henry’s Musical Beard” is a weird 27 second toss off. “Alien Boy” is a goof commercial about mysteries of the unknown.  “Baby, I love You” is introduced as being by MC Vanilli  and the Sedaka Prince.  It’s an absurdly goofy “pop” song which reflects some pop song stylings rather well.  “This is Nightlines” is a profane rambling by Dave about the radio show that’s going off the air.

And yet just as you think the end of the disc is going to be nothing but silly, they play a fantastic version of “Stolen Car” (click track notwithstanding).

It really makes me want to hear the some Nightlines shows.  And, ta da, I recently found Network Effects, a site where a kind soul has been digitizing his taped copied of Nightlines sessions.  That’s pretty cool–more radio stations should take chances like this.

[READ: February 24, 2014] A Wild Stab for It

I found a bunch of Dave Bidini’s smaller books online.  And after reading his book about Keon, it seemed complementary to read this book about Game Eight.

Now, if you’re not Canadian or Russian, Game Eight might be meaningless to you.  You might even somehow think that a game of Canada vs the USSR is an Olympic event.  But it wasn’t.  It was the Summit Series.  Bidini assumes you know what the Summit Series is–this book is pretty explicitly for Canadian hockey fans (meaning pretty much every Canadian) who were alive in the 1970s.  They would all know what Game Eight was and why it was so important.  So, here’s some context from Wikipedia, because again, they summarize it better than I could:

The series was played at the height of the Cold War, and intense feelings of nationalism were aroused in both Canada and the Soviet Union, as well as on the ice.  Known at the time simply as the Canada–USSR Series, it was an eight-game series of ice hockey between the Soviet Union and Canada, held in September 1972.  It was the first competition between the Soviet national team and a Canadian team represented by professional players of the National Hockey League (NHL), known as Team Canada. It was the first international ice hockey competition for Canada after Canada had withdrawn from international ice hockey competitions in a dispute with the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). The series was organized with the intention to create a true best-on-best competition in the sport of ice hockey. Continue Reading »

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Culture Shock, Dave Bidini, Dave Bidini music, Douglas Coupland, History, Hockey, Rheostatics, Russia, Travel | 1 Comment »

HALF A MILLION

February 26, 2014 by Paul Debraski

500000Quietly and with little fanfare (until now of course), this blog reached 500,000 views.

Thanks to everyone who came here on purpose and even those who came here to send me spam–you pushed me over half way to a million.  It has taken just under 7 years with no real publicity to reach this number.  Maybe it’s time I start accepting ads.

And my top 5 posts are

Pierdomenico Baccalario–Ulysses Moore series, books 1-4 13,157
Awkward Pauses [Ass Möde] 8,527
Pseudonymous Bosch–The Name of This Book is Secret (2007) 6,842
Terry Moore–Echo #23 & #24 (2010) 5,529
The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis (2010) 5,518

But soft, let’s see just what that looks like around the world: Continue Reading »

Posted in Paul Debraski | Leave a Comment »

Dave Bidini–Keon and Me: My Search for the Lost Soul of the Leafs (2013)

February 25, 2014 by Paul Debraski

keonSOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Alt House, University of Western Ontario, London, ON (January 23 1997).

 westernThis show takes place at the University of Western Ontario, an unusual location for the band, but they had an appreciative crowd.  There’s a long introduction in which Don Kerr is late to get to the drums.  They say that he’s sick and, in fact, they’re all sick, but they don’t sound sick when they play.

 The college atmosphere seems to relax them.  Indeed, Martin tells a very lengthy story about a painter near his home town in Italy (as an introduction to “Motorino”).  He rarely talks much on stage so this banter is a rarity.  Dave asks if the fans like the banter.  He takes a poll.  Songs and banter?  Much cheering.  No banter.  Apparently one vote.  Upon hearing that one vote, Dave says, that guy, security!  Some fans shout “only banter no music,” but the band doesn’t acknowledge that.

They once again mention martin’s new Chickadee banner and they even throw in some jokes about chickadees in “Four Little Songs.”

This show they explain that they get a little bored playing older songs so they like to mix them up a little.  “Record Body Count” sounds rather different and it has a very pretty guitar outro by martin that leads into the intro of “Michael Jackson.”

The opening band was People From Earth, the band that Martin’s brothers were in.  I can’t find out much about them and I can’t find any music from them, but I’m very curious to know what they sound like.

This is a really enjoyable show.  The recording level is a little too quiet at times, but the sound is quite good.

[READ: February 24, 2014] Keon and Me

This rush of Rheostatics music has had me investigating what the band has been up to since they split up.  They have all released some solo records, and Dave Bidini seems to have devoted a lot of his time to writing as well.  In addition to his column at the National Post, he has written a dozen or so books.  I’ve already read his two earliest books (which were about touring and hockey respectively) and thought I’d read some of his other books too (about baseball, hockey, touring, hockey, hockey, music etc).  I thought about reading his third book, but then–amazingly coincidentally–his newest book, Keon and Me was staring at me from a pile of new books at work.

How exciting!  Sure it was out of sequence, but that was fine.

The only problem (and the reason I wasn’t too too excited to read it in the first place) was that I had no idea who Keon was.  I had gleaned that he was Dave Keon, a hockey player.  But I’d never heard of him.  It turns out he was the captain of the Toronto maple Leafs in the 70s, during the Leafs’ heyday.  Aside from his achievements, which were quite impressive, what was most impressive about Keon was that he only got into one fight in his entire career–and that was in his last game with the Leafs–which garnered him a 2 minute penalty.  That’s pretty impressive given that it was the era of goons and thugs when fighting was often more important than hockey.

But this book isn’t really a biography of Keon.  Rather, it is a memoir of Bidini growing up and loving Keon.  And of his fanaticism to the Leafs (who have sucked ever since Keon left).  It is also the story of young Dave Bidini, grade schooler, who was bullied by the classroom thug (and biggest Flyers fan). Continue Reading »

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Culture Shock, Dave Bidini, Dave Bidini music, Dave Keon, History, Hockey, Hockey Night in Canada, Rheostatics, Toronto Maple Leafs, Travel | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

Brendan Connell–The Galaxy Club (2014)

February 24, 2014 by Paul Debraski

chomuSOUNDTRACK: THE FAINT-“Help in the Head” (2014)

doom“Help in the Head” opens with an incredible amount of feedback and squalling noise–some of it natural and other parts sounding quite processed.  After ten seconds the song begins properly with a pounding drum and buzzing guitars.  The song is quite simple–a catchy melody that blossoms once the bridge kicks in (with some “oh ohs”).  The chorus is also simple and catchy, “I just meant you needed help in the head” with all kinds of fuzzy screaming swirling around.  A few minutes later, the song ends with more noise, just as it began.

The Faint has been around a long time and are on Saddle Creek records, home to Conor Oberst and his many bands (he was in an original incarnation of The Faint). The song has much in common with Oberst’s style of pop–simple melodies and very catchy structures, but it is so overlaid with noise and distortion that it takes it out of the realm of simple pop music into a pop music that is actually abrasive..

[READ: February 21, 2014] The Galaxy Club

Brendan Connell is back with his most daring book yet.  Daring, because it is so very different from what he usually writes.

I have really enjoyed Connell’s audacity in his previous books–whether it was the extensive research done into both cooking and history in Lives of Notorious Cooks (2012) or the brutality that religion can inspire in The Architect (2012) or his exploration into extremely transgressive behavior in Metrophilias (2010).  He has never been afraid to push the edge of the envelope into unexpected areas.  But what makes this book so daring is that it is, for the most part, pretty “normal.”  Book covers don’t typically indicate anything really, but this book cover, in sober black and white, really conveys the feeling of the book–gritty, small town, hardscrabble Southwest.

And yet despite the somewhat conventional nature of the story, there are also fantastical elements.  Each chapter is narrated by a different (sometimes recurring) character.  Some are narrated by “Those Underground,” and “Demon Taming Stick” and even “Prawn Dragon Colonel.”  But they are also narrated by normal folks.  Connell’s past work in creating manifold characters in his short stories really pays off for the number and divergent characters he has here.

The main characters are a man named Cleopatra–who claims to be the Queen of the Nile herself.  The Montoya family: Ibbie, Theodore and their son Blue Boy.  The Roybal family: Elmer and his aunt Ramona.  And a police officer named Alfonso Torcuato Southerland-Hevia y Miranda who claims to be switched at birth with Elmer–but he claims he bears no grudge. Continue Reading »

Posted in Brendan Connell, Chômu Press, Conor Oberst, Death, Short Books, Supernatural, Surreal, The Faint, Unreliable narrator, Violence | 2 Comments »

Betsy Byars–Little Horse (2002) & Little Horse on His Own (2004)

February 23, 2014 by Paul Debraski

little horseSOUNDTRACK: “Chopsticks.”

chopTabby has started taking piano lessons.  She learned a few notes in the first class.  Her second class is next week.  I’m very curious to see if she likes it.  She enjoyed the first lesson (I was especially happy about this because Clark shows no interest in playing an instrument).

However, I know from guitar lessons (which I took in 8th grade) that the first few months of lessons are kind of lame because you don’t really learn how to play anything except scales.  So we’ll see how tolerant a 6-year-old is of doing this.

I look forward to hearing her play “Chopsticks.”

[READ: February 23, 2014] Little Horse & Little Horse on His Own

Sarah brought home Little Horse the other day and read it to Tabby.  She said it was so surprising (she hadn’t read the blurb) that she wanted Clark and I to read it.  We were equally surprised by the strange and literal way the reveal was written.  And overall, there was something so charming and old-fashioned about the story that I was really surprised that it had been written in 2002 and not 1970.

So this is the story of Little Horse.  He wanders away from his family and gets swept into a current where he is dragged away.  He encounters many dangers and a surprising truth is revealed–and revealed so simply and in such a deadpan fashion in the book, that it made the whole story all the more intriguing.

With this revelation at hand, the end of the book becomes charming and bittersweet.  It certainly set up a sequel.

And so in 2004, the sequel was delivered.

little horse2It’s not clear to me how much time has elapsed since the first book.  It’s not exactly relevant, but it is certainly an interest, and it would make a difference if he was gone for a week or a year.

At any rate, the surprise is no longer a part of this book, which may be why I found it a little less satisfying.  In this one, Little Horse gets away from his “captors” and makes his way back to his family.  He goes through a  lot of trouble, including a large and dangerous fall, but he is spared any serious injury.

I hate to spoil the book, but as it is the second of presumably only two books, it is not hard to imagine how it ends, and this book is all about the journey anyway.

I guess because there was less magic and mystery in this book it wasn’t quite as engaging.  But it was a satisfying conclusion.

The illustrations by David McPhail also have a very old-fashioned feel.  As with many books, the placement of the illustrations can act as a bit of a spoiler, which is kind of stinky, but overall they do wonders to convey the mystery and the struggle.

Posted in Adventure, Betsy Byars, Children's Books, David McPhail, Funny (strange), Short Books | Leave a Comment »

Krasnoyarsk National Dance Company [McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ, February 21, 2014]

February 22, 2014 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: February 21, 2014] Krasnoyarsk National Dance Company

krasnoyarskAlmost a year ago, Sarah and I went to see a Śląsk, the national Polish folk song and dance troupe at McCarter Theater.  It was fantastic.  Now, nearly a year later we went to see the  Krasnoyarsk National Dance Company of Siberian.  And it was also fantastic.  Although there were some similarities between the two shows, overall it was quite a different experience.

There were essentially three types of dance in the fourteen pieces.  The first type was a frenetic dance in which the men displayed amazing, amazing feats of jumping, and what most people think of as the typical Russian dance (squatting and kicking both legs out).  The second type was a slow romantic song in which women glided around the stage with giant smiles but otherwise virtually immobile.  The third was a sort of comic skit that told a story–these (and nearly all of the dances) were romantic posturing type of stories.  And they were each wonderful in their own way.

The dances did not follow the order of the program–which I can really only tell because there were some dances which were easily defined so it was easy to know if they were in order.  Other descriptions were quite vague, so it wasn’t always clear which dances these were.  But that’s okay because they were equally mesmerizing. Continue Reading »

Posted in Krasnoyarsk National Dance Company, McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ, Set in New Jersey!, Śląsk | Leave a Comment »

Gene Luen Yang–Boxers & Saints (2013)

February 21, 2014 by Paul Debraski

boxersSOUNDTRACK: ANDREW W.K.-Tiny Desk Concert #37 (November 30, 2009).

wkWhen I saw Andrew W.K. on the list of Tiny Desk players I was intrigued to say the least. W.K. is a maniac.  His first album was packed with full throttle, really dumb party anthems.  Later he made an albums of… piano instrumentals.  Then he became a motivational speaker.  He’s done children’s shows and he recently did an anthem for an internet cat.  He even played drums for 24 hours straight–setting a world record.  So who knew what to expect.

Well, I didn’t expect two lengthy piano improvisations (quite pretty, if a little scattered).  Holy cow, does he attack that keyboard!  The improvs are really unexpected–meandering and interesting (mostly), especially at the end where they kind of decay.

Then he plays a keyboard version of “I Get Wet” which sounds almost symphonic especially compared to the pummeling version on the record.

He ends with a faithful cover of “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress” made famous by Linda Ronstadt.  He sings in a proper voice and if you didn’t know it was Andrew W.K., it would be a pretty normal song.

Nothing like what I expected, this is a most unusual (and slightly awkward–for a motivational speaker, Andrew seems a little distracted) Tiny Desk.

 [READ: February 19, 2014] Boxers & Saints

Gene Luen Yang is a wonderful artist and storyteller.  He has written several books that I’ve enjoyed quite a lot.  This is a two volume set that is meant to be read together (although each story is more or less independent).  I assume that Boxers should be read first since Saints has an epilogue, at least that’s the order I read them.

This story is about the Boxer Rebellion.  I knew literally nothing about the Boxer Rebellion, so for those who don’t, here’s Britannica: Continue Reading »

Posted in Andrew WK, Culture Shock, First Second :01, Gene Luen Yang, Gods, Graphic Novel, History, Military, Religion, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, War | Leave a Comment »

W.S. Di Piero–Tombo (2014)

February 20, 2014 by Paul Debraski

tomboSOUNDTRACK: ZEE AVI-Tiny Desk Concert #36 (November 23, 2009).

zeeZee Avi is a Malaysian born singer songwriter who was discovered via YouTube.  After a few videos were forwarded around, she was signed and then released an album full of simple, delicate guitar driven acoustic songs.

“Honey Bee” is a very pretty, sweet song in which she accompanies herself on guitar.  The second song is a cover of a Morrissey’s “First of the Gang” and while it is far slower than the original, Zee sings it perfectly—her voice is very well suited to Morrissey’s style.  (I enjoyed that she swooned a little when she said his name).  She doesn’t play guitar on this one and there’s a funny moment where the guitarist doesn’t end when she does and she says thanks for giving me the heads up (he says was going to text her but…).

She plays the final song “Just You and me” on ukulele and as with anyone who plays the uke well, this song sounds great.  I don’t know much more about her but I’d be interested to hear what an album of hers sounds like.

 Check it out here.

[READ: February 12, 2014] Tombo

This is the sixth book in the McSweeney’s poetry series.  Even though the series descriptors talk about the beautiful covers on the books, this one is resolutely not beautifully covered, although it is a handsome volume.

Di Piero is a prolific author, with ten books of poetry, a column on the visual arts and several collections of essays.

This collection of poems seems to be about place.  There’s a lot of descriptors of locations and places, but none of them grabbed me strongly.  I enjoyed the last few poems in the collection much more than the early ones.

In particular I thought that the title poem “Tombo” was quite enjoyable because it was so concrete.  And the sequence with the hawk in the poorly named “So It Goes” was visually arresting as well.  Continue Reading »

Posted in McSweeney's, Poetry, Poets, Short Books, Tiny Desk Concert, W.S. Di Piero, Zee Avi | Leave a Comment »

Jennifer Egan–A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010)

February 19, 2014 by Paul Debraski

goonSOUNDTRACK:BOWERBIRDS-Tiny Desk Concert #35 (November 16, 2009).

bowerThis show was recorded July 7, 2009.  It’s fascinating that it didn’t get posted until four months later.

As the Bowerbirds first started I didn’t think I would like them primarily because of the opening lyrics of “Hooves” “Back to when I was born on a full moon, I nearly split my mama in two.” It just seemed an offputting way to start especially when sung over very simple acoustic guitar.  But after the first verse, the band joins in with some Ahhs, which flesh out the song very nicely.  The accordion and violin fill in where necessary and make this a much more compelling-sounding song.

The second song, “Teeth” opens with a very full sound–I really like it–bowed double bass, violin, accordion and guitar and when the backing vocals complement the lead vocal, it’s really quite beautiful.  “House of Diamonds”  is a folkie song, but the final track “In Our talons” (which comes from their first album) is really dramatic, with a some great vocals, a cool section that slows down the tempo and rousing accordion-driven conclusion.  (There’s something a bout an accordion that when played right can add incredible tension to a song).

You can watch it here.

[READ: February 13, 2014] A Visit from the Good Squad

This book made many best of list at the end of 2010.  I’ve wanted to read it for some time now, so when I saw it remaindered at Barnes & Noble, I grabbed it (yes, the library is cheaper, but I find that sometimes I will read things more quickly if I buy them).

I was expecting to be blown away by the book.  But I wasn’t.  At least not at first.  And the real reason for that was because I read it over too long of a span of time.  There are a lot of intricacies in this book that demand attention.  It’s not a difficult book, but the structure of the book is not linear, and there are connections that are made and lost and resumed.  And if you’re not paying attention, it’s easy to miss them.  I enjoyed it quite a lot and I really liked the way the story filled in parts as it went along (you’ll see why that is significant shortly).  And I loved the way the end tied everything together so nicely.  But I found that I got even more out of it while writing this recap because it helped me to make connections I initially missed.  So definitely read this, but either read it quickly or read it twice in a row.

So this book is set up that every chapter is narrated by or focuses on a different person at a different time in the story’s history.  It’s a fascinating way to tell a story for the obvious reasons, but also because most of the characters are interrelated in some way (which was the clever part).  And other characters arrive and disappear while still keeping continuity in the story.

There are thirteen chapters, which means 13 stories.  Naturally there are more than 13 characters, so this makes for an interesting look at this world.

The first chapter and more or less the thread throughout the stories is Sasha.  In the first chapter, (which is third person but in which Sasha is the protagonist), we see her planning to steal the wallet from a woman in the bathroom stall next to hers.  She is on a date with a man named Alex, who is new to New York and is still kind of wide-eyed about it.  He is amazed when later on he sees that Sasha has a bathtub in her kitchen (which she never uses).  Sasha’s chapter is interspersed with her at the therapist’s office as she talks about her kleptomania and about her life as the assistant for Bennie Salazar–THE Bennie Salazar, record producer extraordinaire who discovered The Conduits. Continue Reading »

Posted in Adventure, Africa, Books about music, Bowerbirds, Death, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Jennifer Egan, Marriage Trouble, Neurotics, Tiny Desk Concert | Leave a Comment »

Yoko Tawada–The Bridegroom Was a Dog (1994) [translated 1998–New Directions Pearl, 2012]

February 18, 2014 by Paul Debraski

   bridegroo,SOUNDTRACK: K’Naan-Tiny Desk Concert #34 (November 9, 2009).

knaanI really only know K’naan from his song “Wavin’ Flag” which was the World Cup anthem in 2010.  It’s an uplifting anthem which would be schmaltzy except that K’naan is Somali-born, spent his childhood in Mogadishu and lived there until the start of the Somali Civil War in 1991, when his family moved to Canada.  “Wavin’ Flag” was for the people Somalia and their aspirations for freedom.

In this set (the first ever hip-hop Tiny Desk Concert–although there is very little hip-hop in the set), K’naan plays three songs. “Take a Minute” is quite beautiful.  It’s funny to me the rap section kind of spoils the song  but because K’naan is a much better singer than rapper.

“Fatima,” which has a less interesting musical style than the other songs (perhaps it’s better when not in this Tiny Desk format) is startling lyrically.  It’s about childhood friend of his, with the harrowing line–“what did the gunman say before he took you away.”

The final song is “Wavin’ Flag” (which was popular but nowhere near as big a hit as it would be soon enough). The anthemic nature of the song still sounds inspiring in this stripped own format.

I’m not a big fan of this style of music in general–poppy/R&Bish, but K’naan has a great sense of melody and brings a very interesting perspective that makes his style unique.  And most importantly, he has a good, subtle voice.  This is a good introduction to his music.

[READ: January 3, 2014] The Bridegroom was a Dog

In continuing the “small book” idea, I recently subscribed to the New Directions Pearl series.  It is a collection of smallish books–novellas or short stories–in starkly beautiful binding.  This was the second book I received in the series (I haven’t read the first one yet).  Incidentally, this book has a list of the other pearls, and I rather hope they will send me some past Pearls as well, as they are quite a great collection.

This was an interesting selection to me because I actually own this book already (it’s the same translator, Margaret Mitsutani).  Although as it turns out the book I own (which has the same title) is actually three short stories while this one is only the title story. I bought the book in 1998 and never read it (there is a bookmark that suggests I read a few pages, but I didn’t remember a thing).  So I was happy to get reintroduced to the book and to finally read it.

And I intend to read the other two stories in the near future as well.

This is a peculiar story (as the title indicates).  In it a teacher, Mitsuko Kitamura runs the Kitamura School which is described as a cram school–an extracurricular school.  And the students learn some interesting things.  Like “snot paper.”  She suggests that using used tissues is better because they are warm and wet.  And indeed, she goes so far as to say that you should use “snot paper” when wiping your behind because “it feels even better.” Continue Reading »

Posted in Advice, Africa, Dogs, Fables, K'naan, Margaret Mitsutani, New Directions Pearls, Sex, Short Books, Short Story, Small Books, Tiny Desk Concert, Yoko Tawada, Yuck! | Leave a Comment »

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