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Kishi Bashi (Brooklyn Bowl, Philadelphia, PA, October 8, 2024)

January 9, 2024 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: October 8, 2024] Kishi Bashi

This was our SIXTH (!) time seeing Kishi Bashi and it was so different from the last time!

The previous show was an anniversary show of his debut album.  This one was supporting his new album.

The previous show was at the tiny Foundry and this one was at the (relatively) huge Brooklyn Bowl.  And, K. came out with a fantastic outfit (stunning jacket and pants) and a kick ass keytar!

Tall Tall Trees was on banjo and keys, but his backing band was the guys from Sweet Loretta!  And they suited him perfectly.

K. busted out a violin of course, and stayed with some of the newer dancier songs for a while.

There was a couple in front of us who were pretty grossly all over each other (their elaborate dance routines took up way too much space).  But they were also huge fans and knew all the songs, so I couldn’t be too annoyed.

Although the first songs were new, he didn’t leave out the old stuff, jumping right into It All Began with a Burst (and he still builds the songs with a looping pedal).

I loved the way he mixed up the albums he played from, with a dancey and lovely Can’t Let Go Juno, followed by a beautiful (fantastic harmonies from Sweet Loretta) Marigolds.

After playing Colorful State from the new album, he did a fun beat boxing improv which he said he hoped someone recorded and might send it to him so he could develop it later (I did, but he didn’t acknowledge it).

The rest of the band stayed away as he did a fantastic solo rendition of I am the Antichrist to You.  K. has always had a great voice but it has gotten even better over the years.  Then he busted out an acoustic guitar for the lovely, gentle Summer of ’42.

The band returned for the appropriately large Violin Tsunami and then played the Talking Heads cover.

And  then things got crazy.  The band returned dressed in costumes including one of the crew dressed in golden wings like Icarus for Escape from Knossos/Icarus with some seriously heavy rocking from the Sweet Loretta guys (some killer guitar soloing) and some wicked use of the keytar.  The chaos settled into a big dancealong of Hahaha Pt. 2 a very unexpected (but welcomed) song choice!

Lilliputian Chop continued the dancey/funky vein and then we were joined by Mr Steak (how much I love how silly Kishi Bashi shows can get).  Mr. Steak danced to his song and we all danced along.

Kishi Bashi has not gotten to the point where he’s not going to play some of my favorite songs because he has so many songs.  But he didn’t leave out the fantastic Philosophize in It! Chemicalize with It! (complete with beatboxing and looping).

The set ended with a fun clapalong of Honeybody.  And yes everybody was in the best mood after that.

For the encore, K and  the band all moved to the center of the floor (we hung back away from the throngs.  They gathered round and stood on a chair and sang the sweetest Penny Rabbit and Summer Bear.  It was like a campfire in the dimly lit room.   It was followed by a more soaring Manchester.

Then they ended with a fun cover of Rod Stewart’s Ooh La La with the chorus I wish that I knew what I know nowwhen I was younger.  They continued to sing the song from the middle of the floor to backstage.

What a fun-filled night.  I’m only surprised more people don’t know about him.  We look forward to show number 7!

 

2024 Brooklyn Bowl 2022 The Foundry 2019 Union Transfer
Violin Akai € Intro / Pathos, Pathos ∇ Marigolds Ø
Chiba Funk € Manchester ∇ F Delano Ø
Late Night Comic € Bright Whites ∇ Hey Big Star $
It All Began With a Burst ∇ It All Began With a Burst ∇ Say Yeah $
Can’t Let Go, Juno $ Wonder Woman, Wonder Me ∇ Carry on Phenomenon ∠
Marigolds Ø Atticus, in the Desert ∇ Honeybody $
Colorful State € I Am the Antichrist to You ∇ Honeybody Remix $
solo improv Beat the Bright Out of Me ∇ Can’t Let Go, Juno $
I Am the Antichrist to You (solo) ∇ This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) (Talking Heads cover) Theme From Jerome (Forgotten Words) Ø
Summer of ’42 (solo) Ø Q&A ∠ I Am the Antichrist to You (solo) ∇
Violin Tsunami Ø Penny Rabbit and Summer Bear Ø This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) (Talking Heads cover) (solo)
This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) (Talking Heads cover) (solo) Marigolds Ø Violin/Banjo improv
Escape from Knossos € I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) (Meat Loaf cover) Bright Whites ∇
Icarus IV € The Ballad of Mr. Steak ∠ Q&A ∠
Hahaha Pt. 2 ∠ Honeybody (began with studio arrangement which bled into performing in the style of the Mattsoro remix) $ Penny Rabbit and Summer Bear Ø
Lilliputian Chop € encore Angeline Ø
The Ballad of Mr. Steak ∠ Violin Tsunami Ø Violin Tsunami Ø
Philosophize in It! Chemicalize with It! ∠ Philosophize in It! Chemicalize with It! ∠ Ode to My Next Life $
Honeybody $ Philosophize in It! Chemicalize with It! ∠
encore Atticus, in the Desert ∇
Penny Rabbit and Summer Bear (acoustic, in crowd) Ø (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life (Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes cover)
Manchester (acoustic, in crowd) ∇ The Ballad of Mr. Steak ∠
Ooh La La (Rod Stewart cover) (acoustic, in crowd) It All Began With a Burst ∇
encore
Annie, Heart Thief of the Sea (acoustic, in crowd) Ø
Manchester (acoustic, in crowd) ∇
Summer of ’42 (acoustic, in crowd) Ø

 

 

 

2016 Union Transfer 2015 TLA (opening for Guster) 2014 New Brunswick (opening for Rod y Gab)
Stranger Things Theme [recordong] violin improv violin improv
Statues in a Gallery $ Atticus, in the Desert ∇     It All Began With a Burst ∇
Hey Big Star $ Bright Whites ∇ Bittersweet Genesis for Him AND Her ∠
m’lover $ Bittersweet Genesis for Him AND Her ∠ Atticus, in the Desert ∇ 
Atticus, in the Desert (featuring extended banjo percussion solo) ∇     The Ballad of Mr. Steak ∠ Bright Whites ∇
Bright Whites (with improv interlude featuring flute solo) ∇ Q&A ∠ Philosophize in It! Chemicalize with It! ∠
Carry on Phenomenon ∠ Philosophize in It! Chemicalize with It! ∠ Manchester ∇
Who’d You Kill $ Manchester ∇
Can’t Let Go, Juno $
Say Yeah $
Ode to My Next Life $
I Am the Antichrist to You ∇ (solo)
The Ballad of Mr. Steak (featuring Mr. Steak) ∠
Philosophize in It! Chemicalize with It! ∠
It All Began With a Burst (with “Don’t vote for Trump” vocal loop) ∇
encore
Honeybody $
Q&A ∠
Manchester ∇
€ Kantos (2024)
Ø Omoiyari (2019)
$ Sonderlust (2016)
∠ Lighght (2014)
∇ 151a (2012)

Posted in Brooklyn Bowl, Kishi Bashi, Philadelphia, PA, Sweet Loretta, Tall Tall Trees | Leave a Comment »

Anthony Horowitz–The House of Silk : A Sherlock Holmes Novel (2011) [audiobook 2011]

January 8, 2024 by Paul Debraski

[LISTENED TO: January 2024] The House of Silk

I’ve been really enjoying some various Anthony Horowitz adult books.  I particularly enjoyed his Hawthorne and Horowitz books.

I had noticed that House of Silk seemed to be a really Big, Important book for hi, but I didn’t really know why.  When it went on sale at my audiobook supplier, I grabbed it.  That’s when I discovered it was a Sherlock Holmes story.

I went through a brief phase where I was reading as many Holmes stories as a I could.  But it has been a while since I read one.

In no way can I compare this story to an Arthur Conan Doyle story, nor do I think you are supposed to (even though this is an authorized part of the series).  I can’t quite imagine the pressure that one must feel in Horowitz’ situation.  There is no way he was going to please people by doing this.  I also don’t know anything about his fondness for Holmes.  I assume it must be great, but who knows.

The fun setup for this story is that Watson has written this book but has asked that it not be opened for 100 years because the information contained within is quite damaging to some important people in English society.

And so, although this story is set at some time during Holmes’ tenure as a detective, it’s not his “final” case or anything like that.

The story is fairly convoluted (it is a Holmes story, after all), but it actually has two mysteries intertwined.

It opens with Edmund Carstairs coming to Sherlock for help.  He is an art dealer and when a group of valuable paintings were shipped to America, they were robbed/destroyed  in a train robbery.  The culprits were actually after money on the train, but they still cost the art dealer a fortune.  He hired a man in America to round up the thieves who were known as the flat cap gang.  The Gang is headed by two Irishmen, the O’Donoghue twins.  During the investigation, one of the twins is killed.  Carstairs is convinced that the surviving twin, Keelon O’Donoghue has come to kill him. Continue Reading »

Posted in Adventure, Anthony Horowitz, Arthur Conan Doyle, Audiobooks, Death, Derek Jacobi, Morality, Murder, Mystery, Pedophilia, Religion, Sherlock Holmes, Violence | Leave a Comment »

The Musical Box (Wellmont Theater, Montclair, NJ, January 7, 2024)

January 7, 2024 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: January 7, 2023] The Musical Box

I’ve said many times that I don’t go to see cover bands.  I don’t really see the point (I realize some people like to go out and have music in the background while they drink and talk–for me, the band is the point.  I can drink and talk at home for free).  But I’ve been seeing ads for The Musical Box for a number of years and I often wondered if I needed to check out this cover band who plays early, prog Genesis.

I have enjoyed so much Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets project which plays the early Pink Floyd, but there’s an actual Floyd dude in the band (even if it is “only” the drummer).  There’s no one from Genesis in this band.  But they recreate the insanity of what Peter Gabriel and company were doing in the early 70s.  Shows that were outrageously theatrical and weird.  High tech for the time, but crazily analog now.  But they recreate it perfectly.

Even Genesis agree:

It’s 1973-PETER GABRIEL’s famous theatrics and GENESIS’ musical apex produce some of the most iconic images and sounds of the 70’s, enjoying to this day a cult following. A TIMELESS CLASSIC. THE MUSICAL BOX, who shared the stage with PHIL COLLINS and STEVE HACKETT as performing guests and acclaimed by more than a million spectators in some of the most prestigious venues in the world such as London’s ROYAL ALBERT HALL and Paris’OLYMPIA, will perform the emblematic 1973 show in painstaking details. TAKE A LITTLE TRIP BACK.

PETER GABRIEL: “TMB recreated, very accurately I must say, what Genesis was doing. I saw them in Bristol with my children so they could see what their father did back then”

PHIL COLLINS: “They’re not a tribute band, they have taken a period and are faithfully reproducing it in the same way that someone would do a theatrical production”

When I saw that an online friend of mine had seen them recently and said that this was his third or fourth time seeing them, I considered going for real.  And THEN there was an article about them in The Walrus, a glossy magazine of Canada (The Musical Box is from Canada).  I haven’t actually been reading my magazines recently (I have a huge box of them to go through) so the coincidence of me happening to look through this one and read this glowing article sealed the deal.  And lo and behold, they were playing in Montclair in a couple of months!

The only problem, (if it was a problem) is that they were touring Selling England By the Pound, an early album that I didn’t know all that well (I’m a Foxtrot guy).  But the setlist included three songs from Foxtrot (including Supper’s Ready), so I could certainly listen to Selling England (it’s quite good), and get prepped for this experience. Continue Reading »

Posted in Genesis, Montclair, NJ, The Musical Box, Wellmont Theater | Leave a Comment »

Rivka Galchen–“Who Will Fight with Me?” (New Yorker, October 3, 2022)

January 6, 2024 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: January 4, 2024] “Who Will Fight with Me?”

Rivka Galchen was one of the writers whose essays and stories in the New Yorker I made sure that I read.  This essay is a non-fiction piece about her father.

I enjoyed the very first line:

Recovering from a happy childhood can take a long time.

It made me think about how we seem to glamorize hard upbringing–college essays are based on overcoming hardship.  People love to complain about their parents and how tough they had it as kids.  But isn’t it wonderful to have had a happy childhood?  Isn’t that what parents strive to give their children?

I had a happy childhood and I am nothing but grateful for it. Continue Reading »

Posted in Babies, Calvin Trillin, Death, Essays, Funny (strange), New Yorker, Parenting, Rivka Galchen | Leave a Comment »

Nicole Krauss–“Shelter” (New Yorker, October 3, 2022)

January 5, 2024 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: January 4, 2024] “Shelter”

I wasn’t taken with this story.  The middle part of it was really interesting but I felt like the opening and ending were rather flat.

Cohen is in Tel Aviv.  He is a very smart man who helped to build a company that a bigger company liked enough to buy out.  But since then he hasn’t really done anything creative.

In fact most of his life seems to be settling.

In Tel Aviv he sees a young woman who is very pregnant. He wants to talk to her because she reminds him of his wife when she was very pregnant several decades ago.  But he doesn’t talk to her.  And his wife is cheating on him (with a heart doctor). Continue Reading »

Posted in Hotels, Humiliation, Israel, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Nicole Krauss, Pregnancy, Short Story | Leave a Comment »

Caleb Crain–“Easter” (New Yorker, September 26, 2022)

January 4, 2024 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: January 2, 2024] “Easter”

This story follows two events in Jacob’s life.

They are placed concurrently often with no discernable change in the narrative.  And that makes sense since Jacob is stoned for most of it.

Jacob had driven from Houston to Galveston to visit Stu. Stu was a college friend.  They had gotten stoned together but never just the two of them–always in a group.  So Jacob was a little nervous.

But they quickly got stoned and all was well.

The other story was a few days earlier when he flew from Harvard to Texas to be with his family for Easter break.  They were all going to stay with Jacob’s grandparents.  Jacob’s grandfather had been a doctor and often self-medicated.  He also medicated his wife.  But since he was no longer practicing, his prescriptions were not always safe. Continue Reading »

Posted in Caleb Crain, Death, Drugs, New York City, New Yorker, Short Story | Leave a Comment »

Ben Okri–“The Secret Source” (New Yorker, September 19, 2022)

January 3, 2024 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: January 2, 2024] “The Secret Source”

This story is set in a dystopian future.

It began a little broadly but soon it was made clear that something was wrong with the world’s water.

There wasn’t enough of it and everyone had to ration the water–fifteen minutes per day per household.

And then one day the main character Fisher noticed that the water was viscous and almost a little slimy.  Clearly someone (the government?) was putting something in the water?

This explained why everyone–from the opposition party to comedians seemed so compliant, so passive these days.  If the water was tainted…  they must do something.  But who could they trust?

No one, clearly. Continue Reading »

Posted in Ben Okri, Death, Dystopia, Mind control, New Yorker, Short Story, Water | Leave a Comment »

Joan Silber–“Evolution” (New Yorker, September 12, 2022)

January 2, 2024 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: January 2, 2024] “Evolution”

I used to read a New Yorker story every week.  And then life caught up with me.   I haven’t read them in a while, but after reading the Short Story Advent Calendar, I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed reading a short story, so I grabbed a handful of magazines from my unread stack (1 resolution for 2024 is to read all the magazines in this enormous pile) and started with this one.

I didn’t love this story probably because it started as one thing and turned into something else (evolution much?).

Set in 1974, the story opens wit Cara dancing on a fire escape in New York City.  She slipped and broke her leg.  She has a terrible memory of the hospital and a guy who had been sitting with a friend but who just left him there. Continue Reading »

Posted in Death, Hitchhiking, Joan Silber, New York City, New Yorker, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert | Leave a Comment »

Jenni Keer–No. 23 Burlington Square (2023) [audiobook 2023]

January 1, 2024 by Paul Debraski

[LISTENED TO: January 2024] No. 23 Burlington Square

I’m not sure why I listened to this book.  There was a recommendation that if I liked a certain author I would like this.  But I can’t find that recommendation now and can’t for the life of me think of what I like that this would have been compared to.

I thought it was a mystery novel but it isn’t (well, there’s a mystery in it, but it’s not a mystery novel).  I also thought that maybe it was the audio book reader, Lucy Scott.  But I hadn’t listened to her before either.

But the reasons for reading it are irrelevant.  And I’m really glad I took a chance on it.

The book starts off with us meeting a young widow, Mercy.  It in 1927 and she is interviewing for a room at No. 23 Burlington Square.  The landlady is Agnes Humphries, a woman who says what is on her mind, but is never mean, just truthful.

Mercy seems like a great candidate and Agnes’ cat likes her.  But instead, she decides to give the room to her niece Clara.  It’s quite a surprise that we barely see Mercy again–only when Clara runs into her later.

Clara is a wild woman, going out to parties after 10PM, which is when Agnes wants everyone in bed.  She is wealthy and beautiful and borderline insufferable.

Until she meets the downstairs neighbor Jemima Smith.  She is a young wife with three children and a fourth on the way. Jemima’s husband is an ass. He makes the money but he spends it on drink and other nonsense.  And he’s mad at Jemima that she can’t give him a boy.

Jemima is a stern feminist–prickly with the rich and foolish Clara until she realizes that Clara is actually making a change for the better. Continue Reading »

Posted in Audiobooks, Death, Jenni Keer, Lucy Scott, Romance, Violence | Leave a Comment »

Speedy Ortiz / Foyer Red / Grocer (Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA, December 31, 2023) [CANCELLED]

December 31, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[CANCELLED: December 31, 2023] Speedy Ortiz / Foyer Red / Grocer [CANCELLED]

indexI saw Speedy Ortiz back in September and the show was fantastic.  I already had tickets to see Phish on New Year’s Eve, so it was unlikely that I’d be going to this show.

A few days before  the show, the band announced that they had to cancel because someone in the band had COVID (it’s a few days later and the message is gone, so I can’t quote it here).

So that sucks for them and for everyone who was planning on spending New Year’s Eve there, including the other two bands.

I could have seen both bands back in 2022 at different shows.  Here’s what I wrote then:

Foyer Red has crazy sounds, weirdo words and multiple singers.  And somehow despite all the weirdness (their 2021 album is called Zigzag Wombat), the songs are catchy

Post-Trash says

Foyer Red is a Brooklyn five-piece that makes sweetly sung, charmingly zany art rock. In 2022 they hit the ground running with several great singles — “Pollen City,” “Pickles,” and “Flipper.” In December, the band celebrated signing to Carpark Records by releasing the delightfully spontaneous single, “Etc.”

That first line is enough to make me want to see them. Continue Reading »

Posted in Cancelled, Coronavirus, Foyer Red, Grocer, Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA, Quarantine, Speedy Ortiz | Leave a Comment »

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