songs from the new OK Go album and the songs they more or less remind me of.

Poolside

For those of you who are looking for addicting reads that don't make you feel bad, here are two that I've just recommended to my friend Mike who's off to the Vegas poolside for the week.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. It's about a couple of kids in New York who make it big in comics in the mid-twentieth century. You've probably seen the bright and shiny, somewhat cheesy cover in the bookstores. I was actually turned off by the cover for a while, but glad I finally got over myself and took the plunge. The writing is great, the characters are well developed and fun, and the plot draws you right in.

Straight Man by Richard Russo is hands down the funniest book I have ever read. The opening scene is one of my all-time favorites. It's Russo at his best -- a bit of heartache and a lot of humor in a small, East Coast town.

A Count, A Dead Man, and Another Depressing Read

It's been a quite a while since I've posted last - a thousand apologies to you (Matt), my one reader. Although there have been many books I've read since the fabulous 'Gone with the Wind', I will report here on three:

The first, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, totally rocked. The second, Epitaph of a Small Winner by Machado de Assis, was very funny. And the third, She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb, was devastatingly depressing.

'The Count' was a sweet, heart-breaking, engrossing adventure. It really doesn't get much better than this one if you're craving chocolate but don't want to experience acute nausea following ingestion.

'Epitaph' was another jewel recommended by Dozier. Its narrator is a hilarious, dead man. The first third of the book is a somewhat rambling series of vignettes on his early life. As the book progresses, though, a delicate love story develops. I'd never heard of de Assis - he's a Brazilian writer from the late 1800's ('Epitaph' was published in 1880). I found the book remarkably modern considering how early it was written - I would never have guessed it's from way back then. Not sure if I'm being overly influenced by the back of book (I curse the backs of books!) which makes this point, but the book's use of time, love stories, and characters bordering on the fabulous are reminiscent of Garcia Marquez and Borges.

And finally, 'She's Come Undone'. I sucked it down in less than a week, so clearly it was good in a sense. But the heroine of the book got knocked down again, and again, and again, and again, and.... thank the good lord that's over. I shed a tear at the (somewhat) upbeat ending.

CoverMania

Whew, it's been a little while.

Another covers post for ya, with a solid dose of Neil Young and a side order of Pixies. First off, one of my favorite Neil Young tunes, "Down By The River," covered by Buddy Miles (who was the drummer in Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys). This is the version from his funktastic 1970 album Them Changes, which is only available today as a fairly expensive import CD, so this is a vinyl rip from the album I picked up for $6 recently. (vinyl lives! yeah right, what a pain.)

And for a more somnolent, nearly 10-minute take on the same song, we go next to a collaboration between Low and the Dirty Three, from their In the Fishtank session.

To continue the Neil Young thread, we go next to "Winterlong," a song I heard first as covered by the Pixies. It also appeared on Young's 1977 compilation Decade and was recorded by the Pixies for the 1989 Neil Young tribute album The Bridge.

That wouldn't be the last tribue album the Pixies contributed to. After their reunion in 2004, they recorded "Ain't That Pretty At All" for the Warren Zevon tribute album Enjoy Every Sandwich. If you know the name Warren Zevon at all (I didn't), it's probably as the man behind "Werewolves of London" (oddly enough, played by Adam Sandler on the tribute album). For the full story, see his Wikipedia page, but suffice it to say he was a highly gifted songwriter (with a fantastic dark sense of humor and a drug problem - song titles include "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," and "Lawyers Guns and Money") and I highly recommend checking him out. "Ain't That Pretty At All" first appeared on the 1982 album The Envoy, but it's also included on the WZ compilation (I guess the term "greatest hits" wouldn't really apply) A Quiet Normal Life. Again, I highly recommend.

The Pixies have of course been around well long enough to be covered themselves, and this little gem recently came to my attention: TV On The Radio bravely covering "Mr. Grieves" a capella, on their Young Liars EP. The original of course appeared on the seminal Doolittle, and if you don't have that then I don't know, just... just go away and come back when you've had it on repeat for a week.

Well, that does it for this week. I close with "Hey Joe" because at least thematically, it brings us back around to "Down By The River," although it's not quite perfect since it's pre-Band of Gypsys and thus... no Buddy Miles! Oh well, next time we'll aim for a perfect circle of covers...

Clipped Moustache, Smouldering Eyes

Read Gone With the Wind over the holidays, on the beach. It had momements of greatness (yes, when Rhet and Scarlett went head to head); the raised relief cover was especially awesome; but, it was so sooo loooonggg - got a bit boring at times. It did, however, whet my appetite for historical novels/PBS shows about reconstruction, which I know horribly little about. Recommend/don't recommend? On balance, I say go for it.

Dark End of the Street

At the end of the bonus disc that comes with the extended version of the Elvis Costello album The Delivery Man, I was pleasantly surprised to find a short but sweet version of this classic ballad.

Elvis Costello and the Imposters - Dark End of the Street

Originally recorded by James Carr, Dark End of the Street has been covered many times, some better than others. In my humble opinion, the unusual phrasing of the chord progression that helps set this song apart is obscured by renditions that are too slow (e.g. Ry Cooder) or arrangements too ornate (Aretha). In contrast, the version I've been hooked on lately strips it down to what really makes it a classic: those chords, and of course the lyrics. And it helps that the subject matter works so well as a country song.

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Dark End of the Street

One more version I just happen to have on the hard drive.

Percy Sledge - Dark End of the Street

Off the top of my head, there aren't too many pop songs sung from the perspective of the adulterer. Your bonus mp3 for today is an old blues number of just that sort. Quite a bit more lighthearted, variously attributed as traditional or, frequently, to John Lee Hooker, and sung here by R.L. Burnside on his album Acoustic Stories.

R.L. Burnside - Meet Me in the Bottom

Protest music past and present

Only a few days left to follow through on this...

Impeach the President, 1973, by The Honeydrippers.

Impeach the President, 2006, from the DJ Green Lantern mix Alive on Arrival.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Graphic Novel & Mysteries

Read Watchmen for bookclub. It was ok. My first, and probably last, graphic novel. The illustrations were pretty cool and allowed (obviously) for more show and less tell. As a newbie with graphic novels, though, I found them almost distracting. The characters were uniformly unlikable. I can imagine how, within the genre of the graphic novel, this might be considered great - but I was dissapointed, and didn't enjoy the read. oh well.

Followed up Watchmen with my first Ruth Rendell, The Face of Trespass (but don't get it at Amazon, go to any used book store - you're bound to find millions of hers). It was totally solid. The writing was fine, the story was intriguing, one of those mysteries where the crime doesn't happen until the end. Very suspenseful. I just started another of hers (No More Dying Then), and it's all sun and roses so far. I love mysteries! Especially those by female Brits! Dorothy Sayers is one of my favorites...any recommendations? I've already read most of Agatha Christie, PD James, Elizabeth George, Conan Doyle, Dick Francis, Carl Hiassen. There must be more I'm not thinking of - tried spots of Jonathan Dickinson Carr, John le Carre, Georges Simenon, Raymond Chandler. One of my favorite mysteries of all time, although I don't even really put it in the mystery bucket when I think of it, is The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. It was a recent discovery, and combines several exceedingly appealing (to me) elements: mystery, the exotic, the British back in the day, straightforward writing, plot, character development, and length. So so good.

Parts and Labor new album

Parts and Labor have a great new album out, Receivers, and I'm already hooked. Like 99.9% of all bands, they continue to mellow with age.* Of course, "mellow" is a relative term. When you start out where Parts and Labor did, it means there's still, thankfully, plenty here to scare the shit out of whichever overhyped and overbearded midwestern or Canadian neo-folkie you're currently digging.

You can stream the whole album from their website, and if you like it, pick up a cd/lp from Brah Records, or Jagjaguwar (home to some of the aforementioned bearded folkies).

On a related note, our friends (and P&L labelmates) Pterodactyl have a new album in the works as well. I'll be mentioning this again when it comes out in the spring, but in the meantime you can hear a sample on their website.

*a thesis I hope to expand on in a future post. in the meantime, I challenge anyone to show me a counter-example.

"H. M., an Unforgettable Amnesiac, Dies at 82 - Obituary - NYTimes.com"

Virtually anyone who has ever taken a course or read basic texts on neuroscience will have heard about H.M. and his profound amnesia. The historical timing of his tragic case, which this obit evokes so well, ensured that he would enter a small pantheon of case studies (Phineas Gage being his closest rival) whose symptoms provided essential insights in the progress of modern neuroscience.

On a side note, it’s hard to think of a field other than medicine in which non-practitioners can unwittingly become celebrated for the progress they enable. It’s not like Gallileo ever dropped stuff out the window in Pisa by accident.

Depressing

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. Don't be fooled by the delightful cover.

Invisible Cities

Another great read from my awesome book club: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Truth be told, I've had a number of Calvino books gathering dust on my bookshelves for years. It all started with If On A Winter's Night A Traveler, which I picked up roughly a decade ago and got stalled on about the fifth page. After that, there were gifts of Calvino, I tried If On A Winter's Night at least another couple of times, but to no avail. In fact, until a couple of weeks ago, there were at least five Calvino books in my/my husband's possession, neither of us had read any of them, and they did not include Invisible Cities, so I had to purchase another Calvino for book club. ARG! However, I'm really happy I did, and I'm glad my book club ladies provided me with the motivation to get through the first several pages.

Now how about I discuss the book? It's a series of vignettes about fantastical cities that Marco Polo tells to the emperor Kublai Khan. There is no plot, not a whole lot of character development - so why did I like it?? The vignettes themselves are quite lovely and often depressing in their resemblance to real life. The tone is pretty heavy, philosophical. It took me exactly 91 pages to really get into in. It was the chapter "Cities & Eyes 4" that really drew me in. This vignette describes a city that appears wonderful and unique to a newcomer but grows dull and monotonous over time; only the travelers appreciate the city because they are the only ones who actually look around them. Okay, writing it out, it sounds a bit trite - but the vignette itself is quite moving. It was the first one to really resonate with me, and then I loved all the rest. Basically, it was a lot like reading poetry - only easier because there was some kind of a story/structure -- also there were full sentences!

Thriller, Short Stories, Thriller

Woops – been away for a while, but I have several books to report on. I’ve read three since I last posted. They are:

“Ex Libris” by Ross King (literary historical thriller, mediocre)
“Dangerous Laughter” by Steven Millhauser (mysterious short stories, intriguing and good)
“Pattern Recognition” by William Gibson (cyber-uber materialistic thriller, good)

Can you tell I’m looking for some escape in my bedtime reading these days? Not going to spend a lot of time on “Ex-Libris” – it was okay, not the worst one of its kind I’ve read but certainly not the best (that designation would go to “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, which was awesome).

“Dangerous Laughter” was a nice change of pace for me as I don’t often pick up books of short stories these days. The recommendation came from the same friend who recommended “The Outlander” (thanks Dozier!), and though not as great as that, the stories were very different/creative and refreshing. The author – Steven Millhauser – wrote the novel on which the movie “The Illusionist” was based, which might give you some sense of what the stories were like. The writing is lucid; its combination with the subject matter is often startling, as the subjects are strange and surreal. Some of the stories’ central ideas are particularly fun to think about: not talking again for the rest of your life or the idea of a machine that produces touch (the sense) much as television produces vision. In some of the stories, Millhauser has a talent for disguising the absurdity of his central theme until you’re solidly into the story; it’s a jarring but fun effect. My favorite of the stories was probably the last one – “The Wizard of West Orange.”

And finally, “Pattern Recognition,” another inhalation read. Good plot, definitely scores high on the addiction measure. Gibson’s writing style is hip and modern. Although it was written in 2003 and depends heavily on cyber/modern sci-fi themes, it still feels fresh today. I haven’t read a lot of novels that often reference 9/11 (actually only one – “Emperor’s Children” by Claire Messud, which was fine), as Gibson does here; I thought it was quite well done. The most intriguing part of the novel, for me, was how Gibson hammered home the materialistic nature of his heroine. She works in advertising, is generally likable. The descriptions of her interaction with the external world are fascinating and sometime hilarious in the commentary they offer on our brand-permeated lives. At first, I found these descriptions exhausting and slightly irritating – I think I was probably taking it personally/judging the character. Before long, though, I got used to it and came to appreciate it (and I think Gibson toned it down after the character was sufficiently built and the plot came more into focus).

Bob Dylan versus...

I. Dan Bern

Dan Bern's been compared to Bob Dylan ad nauseum, and it's obvious why. I've been a huge fan of Bern's from the first time I heard him though (once I realized it wasn't Dylan), and once you get to know Bern's songs, the similarity quickly fades into the background.

The similarity is certainly nowhere more in your face, though, than in "Talkin' Alien Abduction Blues," which is clearly an homage/pastiche/rip-off of Dylan's "Talkin' World War III Blues" from the classic album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Bern's take on Dylan's satire of Cold War paranoia (make what you will of Bern's choice of modern parallel for the '60s fear of nuclear annihilation) appears on Bern's first release, the 1996 Dog Boy Van EP. I like to think Bern saw the endless Dylan comparisons coming, and simply decided to get this one out of the way right off the bat. These are fun to listen to back to back.

Dan Bern - Talkin' Alien Abduction Blues
Bob Dylan - Talkin' World War III Blues (youtube)


II. PJ Harvey

I was re-listening to PJ Harvey's great early album Rid Of Me and re-discovered her cover of "Highway 61 Revisited," which frankly I'd never really paid attention to before. I think I've become more obsessed with covers in recent years.

Anyway, not much to say about this cover except that it's a lot of fun, and certainly strays far enough from the sound of the original to escape the common cover pitfall of just being a bad copy.

PJ Harvey - Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited (youtube)

N.B.: This post is in no way inspired by or in reference to James Taylor's new album of cover songs, cleverly entitled Covers, which is just lame. James Taylor is lame.

A or B: 80s tech

Which one is (was) more ridiculous?

A.

B.











I mean, it was the 80s after all and just look at the way that guy's looking at his watch. He's clearly very important and time is money and Gordon Gecko and so on.

On the other hand, was it so necessary to get your Golden Girls and your Perfect Strangers that you had to take up a significant part of your lawn with that Goldeneye-style dish?

Beck: Modern Guilt (and thoughts on going mp3-legit)

I finally broke down and made my first legal digital music purchase yesterday. Don't worry, I'm still a cheapskate: Amazon had Beck's new album, Modern Guilt, on sale for $5, so I just went for it. I could have easily found it elsewhere for, uh, around $0, but I still tend to buy stuff I like on cd, usually by seeking it out used or online, which is still as cheap or cheaper than a digital album from iTunes or Amazon. And it's Beck, so I very much expect to like it, and there's no way I was going to find the new Beck cd for $5, even used. Oddly, though, I think there was another factor that contributed to this spur-of-the-moment decision: the album's boring cover. Cover art and album packaging are still something I like a lot about physical music formats. In this case, however, the cover is really not compelling at all (I sort of agree with this guy). (The third factor was the DRM-free mp3 format, which meant zero hassle buying at work and transferring to home for the ipod, or anywhere else.)

So, the album? I'm giving it a first listen as I write this, and my initial impression is that it's most similar to the Beck of Sea Change and Mutations, but with more production, as you would expect from a collaboration with Danger Mouse. More Guero-style beats, bleeps and boops, but mixed together with that introspective mood and the acoustic guitar hearkening back to the very early One Foot in the Grave. Beck is amazing. He has a set of styles that he likes to use, and is very good with, and almost every album mixes them together in slightly different proportions. The result is often a sound that seems totally new and unique, and like something that only he could pull off. And it's always held together by his unmistakable lyrics and voice. Modern Guilt, I suspect, will grow on me much as Guero did, sneaking up on me until I find myself in the car some day, singing along every word to a song that I didn't realize I knew so well.


----------------
Now playing: Beck - Gamma Ray
via FoxyTunes

Hi + a great read

I'm pretty sure no one but Matt and I read this, but just in case: I'm Letitia/Tish and I will now be contributing book rec's/rants and other miscellany to this blog. Hi!

The great read promised above is "The Outlander" by Gil Adamson. When forced to choose between plot/character development and prose I usually go for the former, but with "The Outlander" you don't have to choose. It's a dazzling read, and easily inhaled it in a few short days. Set in the West - although it's never clear if it's Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, or Canada (Alberta or Saskatchewan?? I just had to look those up - somewhere above Montana..) - it's about a woman who murdered her husband and is fleeing from her scary, red-headed, eerily twin-like brothers-in-law. There's a whole cast of memorable, eccentric characters reminiscent of the recent HBO series Carnivale. The pace is thumping, and Adamson creates a haunting picture of the widow's - as well as other character's - emotional state. And perhaps best of all, her visual descriptions are gorgeous and lingering. Overall , totally great. Probably the best book I've read in a year.

mp3 news

Hello!

Sadly, all the old mp3 links are dead (file storage service mediamax went bye bye).

Here's a random 7" I ripped using Garageband, to hold you over.

Maybe I'll scan the cover for you some time. If you leave a comment.

brief rant re: pretentious hipster record reviews

Memo to the editors at Dusted (and Pitchfork and all the rest of you): for those of us not "in the know," i.e. those that actually might be looking to the record review for information or analysis rather than with a pre-existing opinion, the following sentence might be better positioned at the beginning of the review, rather than in the last paragraph:

"Only a couple of the record’s 10 tracks are actual songs."

Well, that's good to know. Thanks for the tip-off!

summer mix tape

The RIAA strikes back.

A rock/pop mix "tape" thrown together for your summery listening pleasure. Some stuff you know and love, and a few more tracks that you probably haven't heard. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!