tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52441990334786048582024-02-20T10:13:29.137-08:00Radiation Output DeterminedWe don't like sunshine, we drink moonshine hereJeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-46074932234245210642014-12-27T23:58:00.001-08:002014-12-30T23:39:42.440-08:00Love Is a Real Thing Is Moving!After many years of great support through blogger, I will be moving content (playlists and music musings) from "Radiation Output Determined" to a new site on <a href="http://jefferyryanlong.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>.<br />
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Come visit me there:<br />
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<a href="http://jefferyryanlong.tumblr.com/">jefferyryanlong.tumblr.com</a><br />
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For archived and new book reviews, please visit the new site on <a href="http://goodreads.com/">goodreads.com</a>.<br />
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And keep listening to "Love Is a Real Thing" every Sunday, 6 to 9 am! <br />
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KTUH FM Honolulu, 90.3 in Town, 89.9 on the Windward Side, 91.1 on the North Shore; ktuh.orgJeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-62891780213475459122013-07-28T17:46:00.000-07:002013-08-22T14:22:22.500-07:00Fresh Listen: "Child of Nature" vs. "Jealous Guy"When I first listend to the 1968 demo that would become the supreme self-assessment via song <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jealous_Guy">("Jealous Guy,"</a> from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon">John Lennon's </a>1971 album <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine_(album)">Imagine</a>), I could hardly believe how fully formed the composition was. <br />
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Orginally intended for the double album <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(album)">The Beatles</a> (better known as <u>The White Album</u>), "Child of Nature," the basic chord structure and melody of "Jealous Guy," is classic Lennon in the vein of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Fields_Forever">"Strawberry Fields Forever,"</a> where in one couplet he can evoke breathless wonder while self-consciously minimizing what it might mean to him. When he sings "On the road to Rishikesh / I was dreaming, more or less," I hear the same kind of interior subversion that exists in lines like "I think er no, I mean er yes, but it's all wrong / that is I think I disagree" (from "Strawberry Fields Forever") or "If you talk about destruction / don't you know that you can count me out--in" (from Revolution 1). Aside from the first line, the rest of "Child of Nature" is more straightforward, in awe of the idyllic surroundings fusing to his spirit, undoubtedly inspired by his his studying of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation">Transcendental Meditation</a> in India with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharishi_Mahesh_Yogi">Maharishi Mahesh Yogi</a>. But when casually recording the song with his bandmates, Lennon can't help but deflate his deep musings with silly vocal phrasing, another means to mask a sincere yearning for meaning with a joke.<br />
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In the end, Lennon chose not to include "Child of Nature" as a track on the overstuffed <u>White Album</u>. One reason: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCartney">Paul McCartney</a> had a jauntier tune with the same sentiment ("Mother Nature's Son") which, despite an unremarkable middle section with a fair amount of "doo-doo-doo's," had a captivatingly strummed guitar and a simpler, more elemental set of lyrics. "Sit beside a mountain stream / see her waters rise" comes across as more honest to an experience than the more mystical "Underneath the mountain ranges / where the wind that never changes / touched the windows of my soul" (an outstanding lyric for, say, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Springfield">Buffalo Springfield</a>, but only middling for the Beatles). Another reason for the song's exclusion from the album could be the weak chorus of "Child of Nature:" "I'm just a child of nature / I don't need much to set me free / I'm just a child of nature / I'm one of nature's children." Something tells me Lennon couldn't imagine himself singing those words beyond the mountain ranges that may have inspired them.<br />
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The primary reason, I think, is that between the period when he began writing for the <u>White Album</u> and when the Beatles began recording, Lennon matured as a songwriter. Eventually, he grew to disfavor this "mystical" kind of songwriting altogether, growing closer to a more basic mode of expression that could express a sometimes painful truth, but without all the sarcasm and self-mockery. Disavowing the made up scenarios of "No Reply" and "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party," Lennon would go on to write, quite affectingly, about the difficulty of maintaining a romantic relationship as the most famous person in the world in "Isolation." Rather than continue to run on the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/His-Own-Write-John-Lennon/dp/0684868075">In His Own Write</a>-style wordplay for which he was independently famous (an "elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna" kind of thing), he began to grasp straight for the throat: "One thing you can't hide / is when you're crippled inside." He stopped singing "I once had a girl / or should I say / she once had me" and sang instead "In the middle of the night I call your name." If we think of "Child of Nature" as a culmination of Lennon's early and mid-period songwriting, "Jealous Guy"--what ultimately came of "Child of Nature's" underheard demo--is a farewell to that old way of expression.<br />
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Despite addressing one of the most negative characteristics of human nature, "Jealous Guy" is exceedingly beautiful. The tender, almost tentative piano in the beginning (offset by ambient, slowly building strings) is a never-overdoing it, never-underdoing it <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicky_Hopkins">Nicky Hopkins</a>, earning his day's pay with one of the most distinctive keyboard parts in modern song (added to a list that includes "She's a Rainbow," Sympathy for the Devil" and that brief middle bit in "Revolution"). But in most cases, Lennon qualifies his airy pieces, infusing them with an earthy quality that made him an ideal foil for Paul McCartney. Just as "I'm Only Sleeping" was saved from blissful somnambulance by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Harrison">George Harrison's</a> backward guitar, "Jealous Guy" is firmly grounded by the simple, elegantly stated rhythm section of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_White_(Yes_drummer)">Alan White</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Voormann">Klaus Voormann</a>. Not only do they keep the time, they also set an even-keeled groove over which the violins and keyboard arpeggios can soar.<br />
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And then there is John Lennon's voice. While many admire Lennon for his pop songs with Paul McCartney and the Beatles (and maybe a handful of songs after 1970), and many admire him for his outsized public personality, his sense of humor, and especially his outspokenness as it concerned politics and human rights, and many admire him they same way they admire Che Guevara and Marilyn Monroe, as an icon who symbolizes a romance for which their lives have no context, I have always admired John Lennon for his singing voice, first and foremost, his way of implying four or five different things in one line ("I read the news today, oh boy"). I consider it an instrument with qualities similar to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fogerty">John Fogerty's </a>lead guitar--not exactly virtuosic, but stripped of all affect, naked, calibrated perfectly in tone and progressively intense. Even in fluff like "Eight Days a Week" Lennon could imbue with a kind of vocal gravitas--listen to how, through the verses, his singing grows manic, almost orgasmic.<br />
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On "Jealous Guy" Lennon sings it straight, for which he is most appreciated. Though the song is confessional, there is no unnecessary drama. Yet, you can hear in his voice the struggle of a man attempting to come to grips with a very destructive side of his personality. "I didn't want to hurt you," he sings again and again, each time hopefully coming closer to a painful wisdom that will allow him to grow.<br />
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If you've ever watched the Eighties documentary <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine:_John_Lennon">Imagine: John Lennon</a>, or have seen a video of the song performed as part of the Imagine sessions, you've seen Lennon retreating into comedian mode as soon as he finishes the song, going off on some weird riff into the microphone. It's a startling insight into the man's philosophy, which seems to say: "you can only go so deep, and then you just got to laugh at shit." On "Jealous Guy," Lennon goes as deep as possible, coming closer to a universal truth than "Child of Nature" ever could.Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-48927451098897260512012-12-28T18:19:00.000-08:002012-12-28T18:19:25.199-08:00Why I'm Done with Animal CollectiveI first heard <a href="http://animalcollective.org/">Animal Collective</a> a little later than everyone else had already picked up on them--2005, after the release of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sung-Tongs-Animal-Collective/dp/B0001J3VII">Sung Tongs</a>. Ah, the heady year of 2005. The recent emergence of <a href="http://joanna-newsom.com/">Joanna Newsom</a>, <a href="http://www.devendrabanhart.com/">Devendra Banhart</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vetiver_(band)">Vetiver</a>, folks like that, the rekindling of a love affair with the possibilities of the acoustic guitar (or harp, in Newsom's case) in popular music, and the off-kilter folky voices and weird songs about the weather and the cosmos. I saw Animal Collective as part of that aesthetic, DIY guys messing with guitars and percussion and songs with slippery lyrics sung in high harmonies though occasionally in low throat moans, a sort of postmodern Beach Boys a la <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_Boys%27_Party!">Beach Boys Party!</a> if the Beach Boys played droning ragas with tape loops.<br />
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Since then, I've acquired each of Animal Collective's successive LP's: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feels">Feels</a>, with its cover inspired by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Darger">Henry Darger</a> and occasionally transcendent songs ("Have You Seen the Words" got me through the 2007 Honolulu Marathon), <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Strawberry-Jam-Animal-Collective/dp/B000UE64PG">Strawberry Jam</a>, a work I can only describe as irritating despite my repeated efforts to get to the bottom of it, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merriweather_Post_Pavilion_(album)">Merriweather Post Pavilion</a>, in which the cacaphony from the previous album was dampened in order for beats, dance, and melody to take precedence--though there were still the one/two chord drone numbers the band seems overly preoccupied with.<br />
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I imagined <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centipede_Hz">Centipede Hz</a> as an extension of <u>Merriweather</u>, at least in terms of a concern with real songs, not just pieces of tape overlaid with jarring electronic effects and high whiny vocals that are especially offensive because of their senselessness. I also imagined that more of Panda Bear's solo influence would be evident, either in clever, minimalist samples (as comprised his 2007 album <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_Pitch">Person Pitch</a>) or something live, electric and sad like his 2011 release <a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15299-tomboy/">Tomboy</a>. Imagining these kinds of things is mostly unhelpful, and a big waste of time.<br />
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Animal Collective has indeed returned to form in <u>Centipede Hz</u>, though it is the form of their lesser work. The tunelessness, the godforsaken noise, this unnecessary bombast and the overcooked vocals are reminiscent most of <u>Strawberry Jam</u>. Except for perhaps the trifle "Rosie Oh," there is nothing pleasant to hear on this record, nothing you'd want to share with a friend or allow to be the soundtrack for a putting on of the moves. There are no songs, period, just some titles and a lot of gibberish between them.Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-78213297959350604622012-05-04T01:03:00.001-07:002012-05-04T01:03:37.971-07:00What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?I happened on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Ever_Happened_to_Aunt_Alice%3F">What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?</a> by accident early one Saturday morning, on <a href="http://www.tcm.com/">TCM</a>, after a night of beers and Mediterranean food (which ended with a twenty piece nuggets, apple pie and sundae, but that's another story). The mind is perhaps most receptive when it has been scrubbed clean of the residue of the working week, before or after the blooming of a hangover. And TCM never lets me down--I stumbled into <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnt_Offerings_(film)">Burnt Offerings</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubus_(1966_film)">Incubus</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saboteur_(film)">Saboteur</a> in the same serendipitous fashion, just by being bored and not wanting to think about anything.<br />
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The similarity in titles between <u>What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?</u> and W<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Ever_Happened_to_Baby_Jane%3F_(film)">hat Ever Happened to Baby Jane?</a> is no coincidence--both were produced by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Aldrich">Robert Aldrich</a> (who also headed the production of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hush%E2%80%A6_Hush,_Sweet_Charlotte">Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte</a>), and both feature old women performing nasty acts of physical and emotional violence to one another. In this film, the violence is carried about by Mrs. Marrable against Ms. Tinsley--she beats her to death with a shovel before burying her under a growing tree--and later against Ms. Tinsley's longtime companion Ms. Dimmock (Aunt Alice), who enters into Mrs. Marrable's employ while seeking the whereabouts of her estranged lover. Ms. Dimmock is strangled with a telephone cord and then driven into a pond to drown, with Mrs. Marrable wearing her wig, no less.<br />
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The primary plot points are initiated after the death of Mrs. Marrable's husband, who has left his widow with a collection of stamps and dead butterflies. Mrs. Marrable feels cheated, her extravagant lifestyle endangered by inevitable poverty. Alone, Mrs. Marrable takes old women with no family on as maids (what she calls "companions") to ostensibly manage the chores and keep her company. Mrs. Marrable then cons the women out of their life savings with a false investment scheme--and when her hired help have the gall to inquire into the status of their investments, Mrs. Marrable kills them, making their decomposing corpses into plant food for her emerging desert garden. As the movie is set in Arizona, the viewer gets the sense that the soil is perhaps too arid, too loosely packed to cover up anything for long.<br />
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When Ms. Marrable offs Ms. Tinsley--<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0242972/">a mousy, unhandsome woman who has no doubt played spinsters and teachers her entire career</a>--Ms. Alice Dimmock (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002106/">played by none other than Maude from Hal Ashby's classic</a>) comes looking for her. Her plan is to get herself hired as Mrs. Marrable's companion so that, with the assistance of her nephew (hence the "Aunt Alice" bit, which confused me at first), she can investigate the true fate of her lover. Meanwhile, a young widow who looks like a Nordic Isabella Rosselini moves in next door, with a child I couldn't tell was her son or her younger brother; Mrs. Marrable's louse of a nephew and his socialite wife are going to the dogs because of a string of bad investments; Ms. Dimmock's nephew begins a love affair with the Nordic Isabella Rosselini. This last part hardly matters. The only reason for the nephew to be involved is to create a pasted together romance in the film.<br />
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Mrs. Marrable eventually discovers who Ms. Dimmock really is, in perhaps one of the most biting and beautifully acted exchanges (all their exchanges are great) I've ever seen in a film. Their monumental fight takes place throughout Mrs. Marrable's sprawling Arizona ranch home, and ends with Ms. Dimmock strangled to unconsciousness. Mrs. Marrable does away with her body via drowning (see above), all the while pretending that it was Ms. Dimmock who stole her car and skipped town (she was wearing Ms. Dimmock's wig, see?).<br />
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Mrs. Marrable is ultimately revealed as a demented serial killer after she drugs her next door neighbor and her son/brother, and attempts to burn them alive in their home. They escape, get a posse together (the nephew, the yard man, the other nephew, a police officer) and confront Mrs. Marrable in her yard. After the bodies planted in the garden are revealed and Mrs. Marrable has gone totally tits up, someone is moved to mention that the stamp collection Mrs. Marrable's husband had left her is in fact worth thousands (or millions) of dollars.<br />
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There are three things to love about this movie. First, as I referenced earlier, the acting. Granted, I'm hardly an authority on the craft--but I guess I tend to want, and to believe in, acting that is invisible, in which the person I see onscreen or onstage isn't transparently acting. However, in the cases when a particular thespian has the role of a psychopath, I'm impressed, and confused somewhat, at the ability of a well-paid narcissistic pretender to portray the character with any credibility, especially since the means of the portrayal rely on the most obvious of acting techniques. Think of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000164/">Anthony Hopkins</a> as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Lecter">Hannibal Lecter</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000578/">Anthony Perkins</a> as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Bates">Norman Bates</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath_Ledger">Heath Ledger</a> as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joker_(comics)#Live-action">Joker</a>--I don't expect to find the actors themselves to have a natural resonance with the characters they're playing, and thus I must appreciate the mastery of technique (acting in its purest state) in an abstract and aesthetic way when watching these characters. In these cases, it's only through the obviousness of acting that the authenticity of the intentions and actions of these characters emerges.<br />
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I would add <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Page">Geraldine Page's</a> portrayal of Mrs. Marrable to this male-dominated list of great psychos in the movies. Page's Marrable is haughty, superior, condescending, cruel and absolutely charming in the role of Mrs. Marrable. Despite her advanced age and infirmity (as well as he predisposition to want to kill people and their pets) I sort of fell in love with her. There is not one line of dialogue she delivers that is not ripping with subtext, and there is not one camera from in which her character appears that Page is not thinking, calculating, in the subtlest shift in tone, or variance in facial expression. Page as Marrable is simply the most compelling film villain I've seen in a long time. And aside from being entrancing, she is a total fucking bitch. Ruth Gordon also represents strongly as Ms. Dimmock--her interactions with Page are worth the movie itself--but unlike Page's Gordon's performance is much more straightforward.<br />
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The other things to love about <u>What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?</u>: 1) its music, which brings to mind a psychedelic marriage of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Herrmann">Bernard Herrmann</a> and <a href="http://deerhoofvsevil.com/">Deerhoof</a>, suspenseful electrified stringed instruments emerging at times out of nowhere; 2) the fact that Mrs. Marrable keeps winning weird sweepstakes and contests, and lords this over her companions; 2) the location (Tuscon, Arizona)--Alfred Hitchcock also knew how to squeeze the most horror out of the American Southwest, really the perfect canvas on which to carry out the savagery of a dried out, withered humankind; 3) the other little extras, the scenes that serve no purpose but to disorient the viewer--the chile smoking in the brush while his mother/sister makes out with her new paramour, or the same kid throwing darts violently against the wall while proclaiming oddly prescient truths, or the nephew at all, the social gatherings in palatial homes and country clubs and the sexual innuendo (or flat out sexuality) to suggest that the whole community is debased in some way. While these components contribute little to the story of a murderer and her buried help, they add a heady atmosphere of lust and amorality.<br />
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Yes, there are element of <u>What Ever Happened to the Aunt Alice?</u> that subvert the trajectory of it ever being considered a great film. But it works with what it has one perplexing and engrossing piece at a time. Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-1764402121630738812012-03-29T01:36:00.002-07:002013-08-22T14:44:53.129-07:00Record Review: Kurt Vile's Smoke Ring for My HaloAfter repeated listens, I'd finally gotten around to kind of digging <a href="http://www.kurtvile.com/">Kurt Vile's</a> previous LP, <a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13535-childish-prodigy/">Childish Prodigy</a>. It took me a while to develop a fondness for the man's musical style, his primitive songwriting.<br />
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At that time, I thought I was hearing an artist in transition. Rather than the dead wooden likeness to which many musicians aurally trap themselves, I imagined I was experiencing the organic sounds of an artist about to take a great leap toward his best work yet. The follow up, <a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15174-smoke-ring-for-my-halo/">Smoke Ring for My Halo</a>, was bound to be that next great work.<br />
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Upon listening to the album (and I've been through it many times) three things slowly, then very quickly, become clear: 1) Kurt Vile's songwriting technique is based upon, with exceptions, a repeated chord structure (usually finger-picked) in twos and fours before a brief change into unlike, usually ugly, bridging chords that--sometimes too quickly as to be jarring, sometimes too slowly as to be tiresome--lead back into to the primary, repetitive chord sequence (<u>Childish Prodigy</u> was also full of this kind of stuff); 2) <u>Smoke Ring</u> eschews the rock noise of <u>Childish Prodigy</u> for the gentler tones of finger-plucked acoustic guitar, augmented at times by electronic beats and bleeps (all in all, very sonically close to <a href="http://www.beck.com/">Beck's</a> folk-pop record <a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/617-sea-change/">Sea Change</a>); 3) hopefully, this is not the extent of what Kurt Vile is capable of as an artist. The songs, most of which are pleasant and inoffensive enough, sound less like the efforts of a songwriter than a guitar player (in the folk tradition) trying to write songs, but with limited success.<br />
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In "Baby's Arms," the voice that leered to such discomfiting effect on the earlier album is subdued to a quiet pining, contempt and lust replaced with a straining to sound genuinely tender. But Kurt Vile (mostly) knows what works for him, and snarls out (in between the business of sounding soft) "I get sick of just about everyone."<br />
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"Jesus Fever," a laid back groover with the familiar refrain of "I'm already gone" also lacks the punch of its predecessor (or the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-8YWps5QuQ">Eagles' early hit</a> of the same chorus), but marries the easygoing singer-songwriter sound of the 70's to the metronome beats of electronic percussion (again, much like <u>Sea Change</u>).<br />
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The one bonafide rocker, "Puppet to the Man," most definitively illustrates Kurt Vile's limitations in songwriting. What first presents an interesting idea (tool of the government, though a fairly common theme, is about as complex as we're gonna get on this record) soon goes nowhere--just ridiculous statements independent of one another, laid over the never-ending guitar, a muddy, hardly brilliant noise, incoherence busting out between the overlapping notes. Kurt Vile's lack of interest in following through, the absence of a commitment to any idea except not wanting to talk to anyone and just stay where he is is frustrating, and perhaps says more about people who listen to modern rock records today than I would like to admit.<br />
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The weariness of "On Tour," on the other hand, seems perfectly authentic. Here, Kurt Vile seems to know what he's talking about: the struggle to connect with anyone in a meaningful way. In Kurt Vile's world, only a select view exist who do not want to destroy you, or hurt you, or waste your time. In this song there is the ring of truth without the ineptness of the preceding track.<br />
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Like "Puppet to the Man," though, "Society Is My Friend" puts onto display an artist out of his depth, lacking any ability to express the complexities of the positions he sets forth ( the same could be said of <a href="http://wilcoworld.net/#!/">Wilco</a> and <a href="http://www.arcadefire.com/">Arcade Fire</a>). Similarly, <a href="http://www.johnlennon.com/">John Lennon</a> could be found guilty of oversimplifying a complicated idea into a slogan song (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4p8qxGbpOk">"All You Need Is Love,"</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6plnBtRqFM&feature=fvst">"Give Peace a Chance"</a>); however, Lennon, no matter what his faults, encouraged togetherness and equality, while Kurt Vile's vision is much more inward and bleak. His mistrust of everyone leads to a musical and lyrical stasis that perpetuates itself in every song he performs. "Society is my friend / It makes me want to lie down in a cold bloodbath" is just stupid, the misanthropic attitude of a teenager.<br />
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The last several songs reinforce what's happening in the first half of the album. "Runner Ups," though steeped in the same toxic honey water as "Baby's Arms," foregoes attempted tenderness and doubles down on detached distaste; in "Peeping Tom," a pretty, repeated guitar figure isn't enough to elevate the music from entropy and lyrical inanity; "In My Time" is the pop hit of the record, with echoes of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Replacements_(band)">the Replacements</a> in the chorus; the title track, which could be the record's best or worst song (I was unable to tell after a while) suffers from the same production style and arrangements of the the others before it, and is buried amongst the bloodlessness; and, finally, "Ghost Town" could be the thesis of the entire works: "I think I'll never leave my couch again."<br />
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Kurt Vile's <u>Smoke Ring for My Halo</u> is something you can listen to, but is it worth the time? It seems most appropriate as a soundtrack to those times when reality appears as a stoned disconnect, in which the artist's sentiments are suitable. The final song and the most memorable is an instrumental entitled "(shell blue)." Its spookiness would fit as the main theme for a dark HBO drama or the background to a scene in a movie, where heavy shit is happening in slow motion. Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-89040060054580046192012-02-19T11:34:00.000-08:002013-08-22T14:47:48.692-07:00Short Strange Trip: Tales from the DarksideI shall not watch reruns of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_Darkside">Tales from the Darkside</a> anymore. Tomorrow someone will take away the rabbit-eared television in my living room, denying me access to the two-epidsode block at 2:00 pm on Saturdays before the <a href="http://svengoolie.com/">Svengoolie</a> creature feature. And then I will move to a boat off an island, where no one remembers the late '80's/early '90's series. Soon there will no opportunity for <u>Tales from the Darkside</u> to perplex my sense of aesthetics, humor my hankering for bad taste, or regurgitate its ridiculousness into my dreams.<br />
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My short-lived residence in the Darkside was pleasant, its lukewarm chills mitigated by a self-awareness (one would hope) of its own inanity. Now that I've returned to the lands where telephones do not indiscriminately murder, witchmen still lack the secret of transmigration of the soul, and mannequins remain in whatever poses they are left, I don't foresee myself myself day-tripping back to the Darkside on another hangover Saturday afternoon.</div>
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Let me afford you a brief description of the program. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnE3-0X-174">Each episode begins</a> with a repetition of synth notes played over stock footage of blue skies, farmhouses, bridges, and forests, accompanied by a narrator's explanation (a monologue written by producer George Romero) of the duality of reality (light and dark sides). As the narrator horrifyingly enunciates, the better illuminated, more tranquil scenes of nature flip to--chillingly--A STILL IMAGE OF A TREE IN SHADOW. Over this spine-tingling picture is laid the <u>Tales from the Darkside</u> title screen, which recurs, in '80's television fashion, before and after each commercial break. Lest we forget the cornball TV series for which we've surrendered a half-hour of our lifespan.</div>
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With a few exceptions, there seem to be three kinds of stories repeated throughout <u>Tales from the Darkside</u>: 1) inanimate objects gain sentience (generally malevolent) that bodes ill for the human beings who encounter or come into possession of them; 2) a hapless experimenter of black magic is inevitably doomed to suffer for transgressions into the spirit world; 3) an otherwise normal person comes into contact with the mythical or otherworldly, with (surprisingly) happy results. </div>
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In the first first category (what seems to be the most frequently featured), a man takes home a store mannequin he imbues with the characteristics of his parted wife, and she kills him in front of his friend; a woman, investigating why a telephone next door to her hotel room won't stop ringing, is strangled by the evil phone's cord; a man purchases an answering machine that sabotages his life with messages he never intended; a woman is lied to and later absorbed into a fortune telling machine. </div>
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In the second, a physically repulsive medicine man is poisoned by his wife and young lover, only to plant his soul in the young man's body before he dies; a man uses black magic to win the lottery, but is foiled by a stronger agent of the dark arts. </div>
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In the third kind of story, which always struck me as the most bizarre and unsatisfying, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa">Gorgon Medusa</a> is liberated from her mannequin state (mannequins again!) by an unfortunate burglar who looks into her uncovered eyes, and later finds love with a blind saxophone player in a New York subway station; a man collects the tears of a clinically depressed woman, and adds these tears to his storage room of sadness through the ages--when she steals her tears back and breaks the vial that contains them (she's almost run down by a taxi), she's set free from sadness.</div>
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Some of the actors who have appeared in <u>Tales of the Darkside</u>, who have appeared in the shows described above, may raise one's eyebrows. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001583/">Jerry Orbach</a> plays the friend of the mannequin obsessive, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0026789/">Harry Anderson</a> is the unlucky bum under the control of his answering machine, and, in an unlikely pairing, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001069/">Bud Cort </a>and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001406/">Carol Kane</a> engage in supernatural warfare to possess a winning lottery ticket. And a very young <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001255/">Victor Garber </a>is the Collector of Tears, a far cry from his work as Jack Bristow in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285333/">Alias</a>. The acting is usually bad, given the expectations we may have of some of these performers.</div>
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Likewise, the budget is low, and the direction--in fact, the whole feel of the enterprise--reminds one of the instructional videos one was compelled to watch when starting a new job. The lack of any discernible slickness, though, is refreshing.</div>
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At times, in its quest of wringing meaning from its cheap stories, <u>Tales from the Darkside</u> manages to synthesize an utterly different kind of television that goes against everything we, with our preoccupation with continuity and extended plot lines and closure in our modern TV serials, are used to. The show has a lot of information to get across in its 20 plus minutes, and at times does so in ways completely unforeseen. For instance, the episode with the killer telephone is primarily enacted in a long, overblown monologue by a conceited actress (played by a less conceited actress). When Medusa comes back to life, rather than rampage about the earth, she discusses forgiveness, love, and the inherent flaws of human nature. And the one about the fortune telling booth (the best of the episodes, technically) has something powerful to say about destiny and ideological inflexibility, and puts this forth (all credit to the actors) with the intensity of a one-act play.</div>
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Enjoying <u>Tales from the Darkside</u>, when I had access to the series, is like enjoying certain <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkie">Hostess products</a>. It does not necessarily taste good, nor is it good for you--but there is something comforting in its ability to remind you of simpler times. When this sort of thing was consumed with no discretion whatsoever. </div>
Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-83290297900405221112012-01-18T09:47:00.000-08:002012-01-18T09:47:44.773-08:00Weakness in Each Other's Systems: Tinker Tailor Soldier SpyI've seen <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1340800/">Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy</a> twice in the theater, and I still think I need another two or three viewings .<br />
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<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0019247/">Tomas Alfredson</a> has directed the most carefully executed and consciously understated movie to come out this past year. It is the most well-made movie to come out in several years, as a matter of fact. In a collective of spies vying for advantage over a world superpower (and, ultimately, one another), no thoughtfully considered gesture is wasted, no facial tic nor shifting of one's clothes is allowed to give one away to someone else, someone who might be monitoring meanings beyond words. Alfredson's dedication to<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tinker-Tailor-Soldier-John-Carre/dp/0743457900"> John Le Carre's characters</a> is so absolute that each spy's method of concealment is nearly his entire identity in this film: Smiley's reserve, for instance, coming across at first as formal British stiffness; or Bill Haydon's bluster and bravado, which hides the great secret of the film (and not just that he's having an affair with Smiley's wife, and knows that Smiley knows, and makes sure that Smiley knows he knows). Percy Alleline diverts attention away from his incompetence and gullibility with arrogance and an air of authority, while Peter Gwilliam plays the womanizer in the office and maintains a monogamous relationship in his private life. Gwilliam's relationship, like Haydon's bravado and Alleline's arrogance, is destroyed by Smiley's covert investigation of a possible double agent within England's Circus (the country's intelligence service)--and, ultimately, so is Smiley's esteemed reserve destroyed, breaking for one delicious moment near the end of the movie.<br />
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A brief, clumsy synopsis would sound thus: At the beginning of <u>Tinker</u>, Control (the man at the head of the Circus) sends a subordinate agent to Budapest to gather information on a mole in the organization. This mole, Control thinks, has been feeding information to the Soviet Union. The Budapest mission is botched, the agent presumably killed, and the resulting scandal forces Control out of the Circus. Accompanying Control into forced retirement is his second, George Smiley.<br />
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Now idle and alone, Smiley takes morning swims in the Thames and purchases new glasses for himself, while another agent, Ricki Tarr, resurfaces from Turkey--whence he was believed to have gone rogue--to present corroborating information obtained from the Soviets that there is indeed a traitor among the Circus spies. A minister pulls Smiley from inaction and the unassuming man, with the help of Peter Gwilliam and Ricki Tarr, begins a spying operation on the Circus from the outside.<br />
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Because there is very little verbal exposition in the film (aside from Ricki Tarr's explanation of why he remained in Turkey so long--to save the life of a Russian woman), much of the thrust of the story comes from men acting small and saying very little. These men watch, listen, remove files, inspect logs, and perpetually smoke and drink. It has been noted that Smiley, the film's main character, doesn't even speak for the for nearly twenty minutes into the film. Early on, when he exits the Circus with Control after they've been forcibly removed from their offices, each man's regard for the other upon parting is evident, even though nothing is said, hardly any movement made. A brazen smile that Bill Haydon gives to Smiley during a Christmas party takes on a chilling and tragic meaning later in the movie. A viewer need nearly be as cautious, and observe as closely, as these spies watch one another--I felt particularly rewarded when, during my second viewing, I interpreted a detail as significant and it turned out to be significant, not just the busy work in which actors engage when in movies. Alfredson gets loads and loads from the tiniest actions: Smiley's hand on a stair rail as he enters a house, a wood chip lodged in a doorway.<br />
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Maybe the commercial success of <u>Tinker</u> will allow for more films of the same caliber to be widely released in the multiplexes. The nuances of film making are maximized in nearly every scene, the viewer rewarded for paying attention instead of merely being coddled into suspending disbelief. And Smiley makes for one of the greatest heroes to trudge across the screen--an unassuming bureaucrat and man of violence, cuckolded and pure of heart, noble and of staggering intellect and insight. Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-61779887306358965292011-04-21T15:18:00.000-07:002011-04-21T15:57:55.679-07:00Across the Universe via the Brown LineYesterday evening's run was a misery. The Chicago chill left my hands and forearms numb, and the more I sweated the more the wind cut into my skin. Though it's technically spring, it's still winter here, with most days climaxing at a shiver-inducing, spirit-crumpling 37 Fahrenheit. The only comfort I had in the five miles between work and home was that the day before it was worse--it rained. Despite it all, I choose to run in my summertime clothes, as if I believe the weather will somehow take pity on me.<br /><br />I poured warm water over my arms when I got home, until I received full mobility, and then fed the cats before I crammed two bowls of split pea into my mouth while standing over the counter, with a bottle of <a href="http://www.gooseisland.com/pages/summertime/22.php">Goose Island Summertime</a> to warm the old bones. I couldn't hang out at the old home for long--I had to catch Terry's graduation performance at the Armitage location of <a href="http://oldtownschool.org/">The Old Town School of Folk Music</a>.<br /><br />As Old Town's curriculum is structured into 3 levels (each with a sub or "rep" level) of guitar playing ability, the graduation performance began with the with first class strumming slow and easy and march-like to Eric Clapton's "Lay Down Sally." Everyone up on stage was so concentrated on their chord-shapes and up-strums and sheet music that I wanted to give each one of them, whose ages ranged from about 19 to 75, a big hug. When that last chord hung in the air, and relief mixed with a sense of victory clashed over the students' faces, I couldn't help but get out of my seat and cheer.<br /><br />The next group followed with a sweet, folk-orchestral version of the Who's "The Kids Are Alright," which reminded me that the best song that Pete Townshend ever wrote was one that came from their first record. There were a few missteps, and I think the teacher (all of the instructors play with their students at the graduation performance) tried to overcompensate by playing a wicked solo over the performers. It seemed like a pretty bullshit move--if you're the teacher, should you really show the crowd how much better you are?<br /><br />After that, the rest of the classes pretty much fell into a Beatles groove, starting off with "Norwegian Wood" (second class, first level) in which the players (I keep wanting to call them kids, but more than a few of them were older than me) transposed the sitar riff onto the six string, in (pretty much) sync. Not bad. Second class (point five) followed suit with "I'm Only Sleeping," and this time it was the vocals that were impressive--their teacher has reinterpreted the vocal melody line, which made it more compelling, with its off kilter vocals and chorus of acoustic guitars, than I've felt for some years. Unfortunately, this vocal acuity didn't carry over into the next class, who sang "I Will" as if they were a sedated college fraternity.<br /><br />And Terry's class, the big cheeses of the bunch, closed the show with "Across the Universe," which was, according to their instructor, given a rearranged ending in honor of the date being 4/20 and all. A flawless intro, a great singalong to some of the best Beatles lyrics, and a droning, free fall through space and time at the end, the cosmic sounds of high strings plucked in multi-rhythmic harmony until the human ear could no longer perceive the traveling of the sound.<br /><br />If you have a friend enrolled, please see these sweet souls and all their musical innocence on display. It makes you remember how totally total music is to everyone.Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-74767599931742771102011-04-20T08:11:00.000-07:002011-04-20T09:26:13.397-07:00"We carried you in our arms, on International Record Store Day..."<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">April 15-16, 2011</span><br /><br />1808: I'm on a Union Pacific West train from Chicago's Ogilvie station to Geneva, Illinois, to help/hang out at Steve Warrenfeltz's <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/kiss-the-sky-geneva">Kiss the Sky</a> music store for<a href="http://www.recordstoreday.com/Home"> International Record Store Day</a>. Accompanying me on the ride is what will be my final listen of the <a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15034-kaputt/">new Destroyer album</a> for some time, two master cylinders of Miller Lite, and <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/18/110418fa_fact_franzen">Jonathan Franzen's latest New Yorker piece</a> on Robinson Crusoe, the evolution of the novel in English, his travels to a near inhospitable island outside of Chile, and the ashes of David Foster Wallace. The article's erudition and emotional intelligence compel me to put it down at intervals and look at the window. After all, I got records on the brain.<br /><br />1930: Eating a modest assortment of nigiri and maki at <a href="http://matsurigeneva.com/menu.php">Matsuri</a> with Jamee, just a few steps away from the <a href="http://www.thespicehouse.com/">Spice House</a>, where Jamee works. The hamachi is so good I get an extra double order for the the both of us.<br /><br />2035: Kiss the Sky in preparation for the midnight opening in honor of International Record Store Day. We hear from Steve that the last shipment of exclusive RSD releases didn't come through, because of some miscommunication or mis-distribution between warehouse and retail outlet (my comprehension of the situation is admittedly limited). Environment is intense, but when I look at the racks stocked with <a href="http://www.recordstoreday.com/SpecialRelease/4935">Syd Barrett-Pink Floyd</a> and late-era Velvet Underground singles, I see that there is definitely some stuff here, some good stuff. Jamee and I break down boxes of RSD promos, get a swag system together for easy passing along to customers, move things into the back. I pull boxes of the Steve Warrenfeltz <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Made-In-Aurora/168804066501302">Made in Aurora LP</a> out of his RAV-4 while Jamee hangs a canvas poster above the MIA display. And I eat cookies and muffin pieces in secret while Jamee blocks off the back of the house with a sun tapestry.<br /><br />2200: We stop in at Bistro Thai for the RSD celebratory concert, packed to the gills with fans and family members. Complimentary appetizers were supposed to have been placed out for visitors, but no space--no space for sitting, hardly for standing. A sign of the night to come. Jamee and I go two doors down to the Ale House, she venting while I cram my mouth full of homemade potato chips (food-wise, I was on a rather disgusting roll). Mat and Al stop buy, and we talk running while I'm in the process of eating myself to death.<br /><br />2345: Last minute tweaks before the doors open at Kiss the Sky. My job as it turns out, is to keep the Made in Aurora shelf stocked and to talk with people as they wait in line. Speaking of lines, the queue outside the door goes down the block, and every so often someone will sneak in through the front door as if they don't know what's going on.<br /><br />2400: Though these days it seems inappropriate to use "tsunami" as a basis for comparison, a wave of people flood the narrow aisles (well, they seem narrow if crowded with 25 customers) of Kiss the Sky. Some know what they want and flow right from the product to the register--the serious folks browse, talk story, and pick up different things just because they love them. Steve works like a beast checking folks out, while Jamee computes prices at his side.<br /><br />0100: The Made in Aurora LP is going fast. I stock one row, and the other disappears. Someone requests Fela Kuti. Another learns that the Ryan Adams release sold out 55 minutes ago.<br /><br />0230: I'm in line with a young woman picking up a single by the hip-hop artist Self, I think as a gag. Eventually talk turns to the nature of good and evil. The fact that I can have a comprehensive, in-depth conversation with someone illustrates how long the line is at this point. I consider lying down in one of the boxes in the back.<br /><br />0330: Everything I thought I wanted has been bought--all that's left are a few 45's by Peter, Bjorn and John, Black Angels, and a surprising amount of Michael Jackson (whose estate released something for Record Store for some reason). The last few customers reluctantly leave the store with either what they wanted or their back ups. I fall asleep in the car on the ride home.<br /><br />0730: Everyone up again, Jamee to work at the Spice House, Steve to put in another Record Store Day for the customers who didn't hear about the midnight opening. Turns out Kiss the Sky nearly did as well the second shift. I stop by Kiss the Sky for my own customer experience, walk away with my own copy of Made in Aurora, the <a href="http://new.thestrokes.com/">new Stokes LP</a> and and Iron and Wine single I bought just because I felt like I had to. It wasn't that good. A mad dash for the 0830 train, a long commute back into the rainy city, and a day spent on the couch eating chips and listening to public radio, which puts me to sleep for the rest of the day.Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-32634249780966878062009-05-16T03:34:00.000-07:002010-01-03T21:13:56.820-08:00The Little Band That Couldn't: Part 2<strong>This is a call from my lungs<br /></strong><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-wCDQruxGHSHYGJIrhKnXcUsYK88HgBjXiBZlf_olifX57UOcW1GqXzj3y5Cf8cmhKRiXvL6eFkt18PHv7g609OBNor8593YBU3_Rwt5dN1m8H_HJiJAAc1LgZ4AOIiXRz1JLTbtxOqqJ/s1600-h/Band+Picture.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 112px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5336368850794772786" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-wCDQruxGHSHYGJIrhKnXcUsYK88HgBjXiBZlf_olifX57UOcW1GqXzj3y5Cf8cmhKRiXvL6eFkt18PHv7g609OBNor8593YBU3_Rwt5dN1m8H_HJiJAAc1LgZ4AOIiXRz1JLTbtxOqqJ/s200/Band+Picture.jpg" /></a> I've been in exactly two official bands in my whole life, and both of them have suffered untimely demises. Whereas the reasons for littlejeans' slow death were abstract and vague (see below) I confidently place full blame the break up of the now tragically defunct rock band Oh the Possibilities on the rhythm section, good as they may have been.<br /><br />The band started humbly enough--three guys in shorts and slippers (one with a hat) met at an apartment in Makiki shortly after New Year's 2008. The Oh the Possibilities sound was founded upon acoustic guitars played in living rooms and in public parks on Saturday mornings. We would pick up yogurts and pastries, sometimes coffee or chai, and share a park bench for several hours while we worked out arrangements to songs. Usually the weather was just right--in those winter/early spring months the climate was breezy and cool. Someone up there wanted this band to succeed. Everyone, in fact, wanted the band to succeed--except for the rhythm section, who had other, more insidious plans.<br /><br />The folky manifestation of Oh the Possibilities lasted several months while we searched in vain for a drummer, until it finally occurred to someone that the bass player was married to one of the sickest drummers in Hawai'i. The lineup expanded, and briefly included a keyboard player who vanished, some time in April, without explanation. The sound of Oh the Possibilities grew more darker, heavier, the bass player and the drummer worked as well together as if they were soul mates, and the guitar players kept doing their thing, trying to write songs that might significantly alter the global (or "glocal") paradigm. Practices became more fulfilling, shows began to materialize, records were made...and then the bass player and drummer split, moved to Maryland to have a baby.<br /><br />Though my life was poisoned with bitterness for months after the sundering of this small, beautiful thing, I've come to appreciate the lessons I've learned with the band: that Russ is as good making Japanese food as he is making Mexican, and as good a bass player as he is with the guitar; that Janie's beats are machine-like in their precision, yet stunningly human in their groove; that Chris's songs never stop getting better. I was afraid he'd never top his Bunkbed stuff, and then he came out with his Buford Brixton/Summatyme Playerrz--I was afraid there wouldn't be another "Happy Ending," and then he wrote "Lula." Personally, I was probably as good as I'm ever gonna get with Oh the Possibilites, both on the guitar (I was actually forced to play lead in a couple songs, something I thought I'd never do) and in terms of songwriting. It'll be hard to generate that same kind of spirit again, but I'm not averse to getting back to work.<br /><br />I've included a widget with an Oh the Possibilities playlist for your listening pleasure. Just take a look to your right.<br /><br />Ah, those early days of 2008. Who would've known then that a heart would be so irrecovably broken?Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-5295586625795525032009-05-12T00:00:00.000-07:002014-12-30T23:41:49.517-08:00The Little Band That Couldn'tAside from a high school experiment in which why had electric instruments and drums--but no amplifiers--littlejeans was my first band. And when I say "my band," I don't mean to take sole possession of its triumphs and failures. I simply mean I was in littlejeans. Or I was half in littlejeans, in retrospect.<br />
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I was involved with a girl at the time and more often than I would like to admit, I made up excuses to get out of band practice so that I could go to the movies or make lasagna at her house. Nevertheless I played, like everyone else in the band, guitar, drums, bass, keyboards, accordion, pennywhistle, pan flute, spoons, forks, bowl of mash potatoes and maracas--all equally badly, though keyboards was the worst. I also sang, like the other guys, and if you ever went to one of the five or six littlejeans shows you know that half of our playing time was spent taking guitars off, strapping guitars back on, crawling over drum kits, tripping over wires and power cords, moving dissected corpses from the stage to the floor, resuscitating drowning victims, delivering babies and adjusting keyboard levels into the P.A.<br />
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When I think back on the band and its relatively long life, three questions come to mind: 1) whatever happened to all of those great shirts I used to own? 2) what went wrong? and 3) are stars made of fire? Although the first and third questions will forever remain a mystery, my own theory concerning the second question is built upon a faulty demo released in our name. Of course there were other factors involved--clashing relationships, people moving away from Hawaii, the sax player drowning in a puddle of his own fecal matter, a general feeling of existential distress, the erosion of family values, the rising political fortunes of Hugo Chavez, the Hubble telescope, Jewel's third record, the continuing debate of whether we would sound like Alkaline Trio or like Pavement or like Anita Baker (this debate was never vocalized but I was firmly of the Anita Baker camp).<br />
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But that demo cast a pall on everything we did afterwards. Though it may have been released by a semi-famous record label it was nothing any of us could be proud of. And though we begged for the opportunity to re-record the record, the label went ahead and released it anyway. What should have been an occasion for celebration became a big disappointment, and our first experience with a record company was a burn.<br />
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I have a lot of fond memories of our time together, and I'm thankful that most of us are still friends. For a band of such talented people (of which I was perhaps the least talented) the interactions were astonishingly ego-free, and everyone worked their hardest to get the most out of the songs while discreetly acknowledging the possibility of a nuclear holocaust, should an unstable governement have access to atomic weaponry. littlejeans can never happen again because I will never be that young again, because I will never be that hungry again (both literally and metaphorically), and because the other guys are now making even better music. You can find that demo EP on I-Tunes. Don't check it out, and for god's sake don't buy it.Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-36276410492652137792008-12-30T00:57:00.000-08:002010-01-03T12:37:57.046-08:00Music from My Friends 4: Linus the Band<strong>So what, I don't care</strong><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFRmWqsin8TWujBi3XtO48S0jVdNJOei8uQ64ZeA4F1puQWTmayII221VZnDxY5ZXUcoBkeKAQGh4DF4oY6KI_YGdvZ0avDjGTHULmkOZ86B7oUMfRjW8XitijgvATSYS4ABpBJvtcKB_Y/s1600-h/linus+image.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 133px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285505161602273506" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFRmWqsin8TWujBi3XtO48S0jVdNJOei8uQ64ZeA4F1puQWTmayII221VZnDxY5ZXUcoBkeKAQGh4DF4oY6KI_YGdvZ0avDjGTHULmkOZ86B7oUMfRjW8XitijgvATSYS4ABpBJvtcKB_Y/s200/linus+image.jpg" /></a> The first time I heard Linus the Band was about two hours before I was supposed to play a gig with them. Back then I was guitarist / vocalist / keyboardist / bassist / tambourinist / drummer in a band that shall remain nameless--and I was feeling flush with confidence, cocky even, that I was in the best band in Hawaii. We had just gotten a pseudo-recording deal with a specialty label in California, despite having only played about three gigs (two of them at what used to be called King's Crab, in Waikiki). So yeah, even though I was a pretty lousy guitar player, and a worse singer, I was feeling good about being in Hawaii's best band. Although no one else thought of us in the same way, and no one ever would.<br /><br />The show we had that night was at Cafe Ground Zero, which everyone now knows as Mercury Bar, just across the street from Mark's Garage. I was over at the drummer / guitarist / bassist / keyboardist's apartment just tuning up my guitar or whatever, and he was playing Linus's first EP over his computer. I couldn't help but listen--even though they'd recorded it at Junk studios live, it sounded great. "This is who we're playing with tonight," he told me.<br /><br />I put down my guitar. "We gotta play with <em>these</em> fucking guys?"<br /><br />"They're pretty good, right?"<br /><br />Obviously I didn't feel as confident walking into that show.<br /><br />When we got there we found out we had to play <em>after</em> Linus, which made us--or me, particularly--even more nervous. I think Nik was wearing a T-shirt, and Dave was playing a Danelectro then, torquoise-colored. Danmerle and Sandeep were still in the band. While I sat and watched their set I felt myself grow pale. Their songs were catchy, sometimes danceable, sometimes moshable, sometimes spooky in a very good way. These were the days of "The Construction," "Sad to Say" and "Girlfriend." One of us said he didn't want to do the song he usually did. I said I hardly wanted to do the show at all. We ended up doing okay, I guess, though I never felt so ridiculous playing the Rhythm King drum machine as I did that night. After their show I paid five bucks for the EP (the one with the rhino on it) and spent the next week listening to it and seething with envy.<br /><br />Since then I've played shows with Linus a couple of times, and seen them less often than I would like. But every time I go to their show I have fun, whether I end up dancing or simply digging their music while sitting down. The bottom line is, you can't fuck with Linus, For They Are Better Than You. They play a better guitar, they have a better rhythm section. As an audience member I'm always torn between dancing to their groove or listening to their music, because almost every song inspires you to do both.<br /><br />I've included sound clips of Dave--the band's lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter--from a solo live performance on KTUH's Monday Night Live. I wish I could have also included tracks from the band as well, but 1) the widget I use, which I detest, would not allow me to use the format of song file in which I have my Linus recordings; 2) these songs are great and should be checked out; 3) you can get a sense of some Linus tracks possibly coming up in the future, which you haven't heard before. Enjoy.<br /><br />To stay abreast of the latest Linus news, you can check out Dave's blog here:<br /><br /><a href="http://blog.myspace.com/linusthebanddotcom">http://blog.myspace.com/linusthebanddotcom</a>Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-21469024811831911542008-12-21T11:00:00.000-08:002010-01-03T12:30:06.488-08:00Music From My Friends 3: lovehandles<strong>Shine your light</strong><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVM8Yh2h9Ozw1fFOv3sykgQDq_ZX4MKYwFpIJGx7GF0k4T88qJG7NABX40uBhuhphd-aRoaRRSCh2IsTIJ3DYqpG5CzzukCX2LtGVLfVrujNsLPFLdE8vnkg7__dlk4XRdHvIY23IiYfBg/s1600-h/Tommy+Image.JPG"><strong><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 166px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273858794866415378" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVM8Yh2h9Ozw1fFOv3sykgQDq_ZX4MKYwFpIJGx7GF0k4T88qJG7NABX40uBhuhphd-aRoaRRSCh2IsTIJ3DYqpG5CzzukCX2LtGVLfVrujNsLPFLdE8vnkg7__dlk4XRdHvIY23IiYfBg/s200/Tommy+Image.JPG" /></strong></a><strong><br /></strong>Formerly of littlejeans, the BunkBeds, the Haunted Pines, and Kitty Hawk, lovehandles has played music all over this land, from Mililani to San Francisco to Arlington to Portland. I first met the personage who would become lovehandles in an undergraduate screenwriting class, where he had me listen to a cassette of his acoustic multi-tracked cover of the Beatles' "Real Love" on his Walkman. Ever since that moment, lovehandles has consistently flipped my wig with the breadth of his talent and taste.<br /><br />Following the music career of the artist formerly known as Tommy for the past seven or eight years--as both a collaborator and a fan--has delivered one revelation after the other. His first cassette complilations were what I might call, if I chose to wear the shit-stained music reviewer's hat, "ad hoc indie folk guitar pop," but lovehandles is not the kind of artist that should be judged by the crippled measurements so commonly used to classify guitar-based songs. In fact, lovehandles is a different kind of artist altogether.<br /><br />Whereas many musicians exploit their lives as material to create an artificial statement of their feelings, lovehandles' life <em>is </em>his music. His songs are not abstract and miserable musings on the injustice of existence; rather, they are vibrant photographs of a particular moment when he felt a particular thing particularly. Each lovehandles song celebrates a moment and feeling in all of its wonder, and the immensity of his output is testament to the limitless number of transcendent moments, the chasms and the pinnacles, a person can experience from one day to the next.<br /><br />You can check out the newest lovehandles recordings on his myspace page here:<br /><br /><a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=20292258">http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=20292258</a><br /><br />And you can also see videos for his "skeleton smiles" and "yesyesyes" here:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG2Ip805wgc&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG2Ip805wgc&feature=related</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rDZGWOXy6s">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rDZGWOXy6s</a>Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-10236937242980182842008-11-28T15:43:00.001-08:002010-01-03T12:19:10.164-08:00Music From My Friends 2: Chris Claxton<strong>You're riding so low but you're riding solo</strong><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIQ-tFGFx8uFTt8iMs919RpRSoDMsfv2J_pKzpES_mVoMlPg5DnGNqg5PLr8IyI4Pf1R5aO5hypv1L7DMkMnrPIxSoyn_e6TedSKXi05EWKGhiwwEzwwKZ2SORXEV1thTaW5dWvgQ198O0/s1600-h/Chris+Image.JPG"><strong><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 150px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273858336064395490" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIQ-tFGFx8uFTt8iMs919RpRSoDMsfv2J_pKzpES_mVoMlPg5DnGNqg5PLr8IyI4Pf1R5aO5hypv1L7DMkMnrPIxSoyn_e6TedSKXi05EWKGhiwwEzwwKZ2SORXEV1thTaW5dWvgQ198O0/s200/Chris+Image.JPG" /></strong></a><strong><br /></strong><div>Music From My Friends presents Chris Claxton, nee Buford Brixton, nee Summatyme Playerrz, formerly of littlejeans, the Bunkbeds, and Oh the Possibilities. Mr. Claxton hails from Maryland, paid his dues on the rough streets of Mililani, and is currently keeping it real in Makiki with his wife. It always struck me how parallel Chris and Russ's (<em>see Music From My Friends 1</em>) lives are: Chris came from Maryland, Russ went to Maryland. Chris plays bass, Russ plays bass. They both are married. Both of their first names end in "s," which is a pain when you consider writing their names in the possessive form. They both write ill songs. And they both like taking pictures in front of architecture, apparently (see Russ's photo in a blog below). The songs you are experiencing come from two sources: 1) Chris's project "Summatyme Playerrz," which Tommy sent to me when I was in Ukraine and which made incredibly cold Ukrainian winter (the coldest, it seems, in 100 years) warm; 2) Chris's recent performance on KTUH's <em>Monday Night Live</em>. To put it simply, one of the best singers/guitarists/bassists/songwriters I know. For more information about Mr. Claxton, you can check out nothing. Unlike Russ, who has the gift of foresight, Chris has not created a website with which to showcase his music.</div>Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-41085148654100515652008-11-28T15:27:00.000-08:002010-01-03T12:15:52.553-08:00Music From My Friends 1: Russ Crandall<strong>In my mind, I beat up jerks</strong><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjifnryfah9vbaRIVAnFplvR-Is2FxSv6KYnlSMq8rPhSx1Zq1mQpaE3cbyDhS_d7Ns1vMqjnevIh6jJ-90KKAZ_6PPJwLBu39e4TCGD3Dl7kTymluVcvP-AZe76M0JHvSOIdAdEOuVuFSP/s1600-h/Russ+Image.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 100px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273854891246268514" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjifnryfah9vbaRIVAnFplvR-Is2FxSv6KYnlSMq8rPhSx1Zq1mQpaE3cbyDhS_d7Ns1vMqjnevIh6jJ-90KKAZ_6PPJwLBu39e4TCGD3Dl7kTymluVcvP-AZe76M0JHvSOIdAdEOuVuFSP/s200/Russ+Image.jpg" /></a> Hailing from the backwaters of Washington State, now currently located in the frontwaters of Maryland, Russ Crandall is a bit of a polymath: songwriter/singer/bass player/producer/sound engineer and loving husband/father. Although I'm personally more acquainted with him as one-half a rhythm section as tight as Phil Spector's Wrecking Crew (his drummer wife Janey makes up the other 50%), Russ has recorded a vast amount of amzing songs on which he sings and plays guitar.<br /><br />Where does one start with Russ's catalogue? Well, <em>Radiation Output Determined</em> doesn't want anyone to work too hard for listening satisfaction, so I've included five of my favorite Russongs on the box player to the right of the page (without trying to give Russ a swelled head he's also pretty nifty with a computer--he showed me how to access the widget I'm using as a music player). These songs illustrate Russ's talents not only as songwriter, but also as an interpreter of others' works. Check out his versions of "Lula" and "Two Little Lovebirds," songs by equally excellent artists about whom you will also read in the near future.<br /><br />If you're liking what you're hearing, you can listen to more Russongs at the site below, as well as keep up with all the latest videogame information (oh yeah, Russ also maintains a site, with two other well-read gentlemen, that reviews movies, music, technology, and, most importantly, videogames).<br /><br /><a href="http://threevue.com/russ/my-music/">http://threevue.com/russ/my-music/</a>Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5244199033478604858.post-6323221426076816502008-11-15T23:39:00.000-08:002010-01-03T11:21:32.365-08:00Was Blind, But Now I SeeYou Spin Me 'Round Right<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCEHz4SostTo1t6ss-Xp0nm8vuSi2gsm5R_WbrkHiNo6FS7rLGqrVCVIpHkypK9Yob8Y5y211WAs1MvyjpZKwjoD4e8SnOnuTTU_BD_XrQUwLFJLsNuDXtXfMeoIWFU33-KRkGzNKcrW84/s1600-h/DSC01236.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 150px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5269157617356805186" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCEHz4SostTo1t6ss-Xp0nm8vuSi2gsm5R_WbrkHiNo6FS7rLGqrVCVIpHkypK9Yob8Y5y211WAs1MvyjpZKwjoD4e8SnOnuTTU_BD_XrQUwLFJLsNuDXtXfMeoIWFU33-KRkGzNKcrW84/s200/DSC01236.JPG" /></a>Last week I had a profound existential revelation: for the past five years, I have been living--speaking, I mean, and working and riding buses and bicycles--with only half a heart. I'm not sure if anyone recognized my predicament, and for the most part I hardly remembered it myself. I would speak non-committally, agree or disagree on any topic without much investment in the outcome, even hurl myself, scientifically, into emotional exchanges in which I knew I could never be touched deeply. I was there and not there. How can a person whose clearer, more refined half has gone missing ever be in one place at the same time?<br /><br />Then I fixed my record player.<br /><br />For months it had been lying on the floor of my apartment. Bryce's parents had given me this magnificent piece of machinery without a second thought, when I helped his sister move from their house in Kaneohe. For them it was as simple as reducing the clutter in a room, and to be honest I didn't understand the significance of the gift until much later. As soon as I'd gotten home I attempted to connect it to my stereo, but the sound came out thin, barely audible. I proceeded to take it apart, cleaning the needle and its attachments, the RCA connections and, even though the platter surface spun correctly, I removed it and disengaged the rubber band that propels the record under the needle, which I had to fix all over again. After all that only a reverberating hum through the speakers, and underneath it a tinny whisper of voices and instruments all jammed up together.<br /><br />I didn't even have any records--my vinyl collection is with my parents in Arizona, and the chances of them mailing it back to me after they've already had it shipped over there don't look so good. I considered wrapping the machine up in its own wires and putting it in my closet, waiting for the right opportunity to palm it off on someone else. But the promise of sound emitting from this record player (a Marantz, for all the gearheads) resonated in that big black absence in my heart, and instead of moving on I embarked on a search that lasted a full day, when fate intervened in the person of an unneccessarily imperious Radio Shack salesperson. He explained that all I needed was a stereo receiver with PHONO setting (AUX doesn't cut it for phonographs) and then proceeded to bend my ear about how useful a Radio Shack credit card was, when in the past ten years I've been in Radio Shack about three times. After not going out to the bars one weekend and not spending a prodigious amount of my paycheck on liquor and 24-hour diners, I had enough to pay for the receiver. Slowly, and with great relish, I set up the record player with the stereo, and when the glorious sounds of Ravi Shankar's sitar came bright and full from the speakers, I felt like I was being attacked with a hatchet. It was a sublime pain, of one jagged half of the soul being affixed to the other.<br /><br />I've had record players in my life for as long as I've had my WalkMan and my portable CD player. When I moved out of my house in Kaneohe to town, one of the great pleasures of my week was smoking, drinking cheap wine, and listening to records. Or picking out records from Goodwill stores, stocking up on LPS from the HPR record sales that came around in the winter. Back in those days it was Sam Cooke, Billie Holiday's live version of "I Cover the Waterfront," an Otis Redding anthology I stole from my dad, Ray Charles, Bruce Springsteen's <em>Greetings From Asbury Park </em>and Joni Mitchell's <em>Court and Spark</em>. When I was feeling particularly desolate I would play Jack Nietzche's score from <em>One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest </em>again and again.<br /><br />And from 2003, when the motor on my turntable burnt out, I'd been trying to fill the void left by those unplayed records with countless CDs, MP3s, i tunes and downloads. Despite the amount of digitized music data that has flowed through my i-pod into my mind, nothing could compensate for the anticipatory crackle of a stylus on the record's groove before the first track, and in-between each of the songs. I can't explain the sensation any way that does it justice--bass from a CD comes at you, while bass from an LP moves <em>through</em> you.<br /><br />So now I'm whole once more. Feeling good, feeling optimistic, rebuilding my record collection from nothing. My attempts at establishing a library have led to some arbitrary purchases--just yesterday I bought a copy of Van Cliburn playing Rachmaninoff's 3rd Concerto. Why? Search me. But I've bought some pretty revelatory records, too, especially Richard and Mimi Farina's <em>Best Of</em> album, which I'm sure I'll write about later.<br /><br />What is this deep connection we tend to have to material things? Dumbo had a feather, Arthur had a grail, B. B. King had Lucille and Jack Kerouac had a car and a mountain. I have a record player.Jeffery Ryan Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01631896147353656656noreply@blogger.com0