Do you know this man? Hang on to your hats... you're about to meet him. [source]
While the Suburban Soliloquist is away negotiating real estate agreements and finance arrangements (yes, she too, nearly forgot about that laborious and evidently not-so-captivating-dot-i-cross-t job where she redlines paragraphs packed with polysyllabic words such as herinafters and notwhithstanding-the-forgoings concurrently with vainly attempting to ward off the one-hundred-thousand-word migraine) she has made very special arrangements for you to see a very rare show in a tiny and somewhat cluttered but acoustically pleasant venue where very exciting things happen on a daily basis (which, to the best of her knowledge, do not include real estate or legal matters, at least—at the very least—not on all-songs-considered day) that sometimes have the effect of giving her...
...goosebumps.
Are you dressed and ready to go? Well, fine, don't dress. Dress is optional.
Alright then, here are your TICKETS (click, click) for the show. You'll need them to get in. Now go. Seriously, go now. And Enjoy! (Oh, and take a look at the program, too.)
When it's over, please feel free to come back and let the Suburban Soliloquist know what you thought of it. She likes hearing from you.
This is how the Suburban Soliloquist feels about the man in the show:
You can find the man's lastest CD and preview all songs here.
Disclaimer: The Suburban Soliloquist shall not be liable for any claims, accidents, damages or expenses of whatever nature arising directly or indirectly from any accident, injury or damage to any person or persons or property caused, in part or wholly, by swooning audience, nor shall she be responsible for the consequence of any actions--per se, swooning--of those attending the show, nor for disturbing her readers with redundant disclaimers.
(The Suburban Soliloquist likes her blogger job a whole lot better, unfortunately, that gig is pro bono. She will, though, endeavor to keep it.)
The unraveling of the alternative country band Uncle Tupelo, in 1994, left an ensemble of talented musicians to grapple with what next. But singer/songwriter Jeff Tweedy swiftly gathered the same musicians, minus Jay Farrar, and knotted together the band known as Wilco(an acronym for two-way radio voice procedure). Tweedy, Wilco's mercurial frontman, tours occasionally on his own and is especially brilliant when he does so. As in this performance:
[Joy of joys—the lyrics to Open Your Mind, along with the chords, can be found here! And they're all pretty simple chords except for that dang A minor, but yes! I am warming up the banjo.]
It's impossible not to hear the influence of early country and folk genres, as well as punk and alternative rock, and artists like Neil Young (for whom Wilco has opened), Johnny Cash and Tommy Stinson in Tweedy's songs, nor see the pilferage of classic literature in his pure, honest lyrics. With the Chicago based Wilco, Tweedy's music assumes a thick, bittersweet consistency—the likes of which he deftly jars—such as this emotive, demon-filled, uh... um... ballad:
Here, Tweedy spills out his weighty contents once again:
More about Wilco, from Wikipedia, here. Wilco's The Whole Love, to be released September 27, 2011, can also be found in that overgrown, thicketed jungle if you hack your way here. Seriously, bring your machete.
They flew low. So low that they appeared to clip the tall oaks and pines lining the streets from where we first saw them. From the car, we caught sight of two mottled grey lusterless airships as we headed south on Abbott Valley. They—wide-bodied, slow-motion, thunderous-winged bullets—soared nearly side by side as they appeared from the east and throttled west over Bear Hill's ascent.
Lu looked worried, Are we going to be bombed, Mama? she asked.
What a question. But it made me think of 9/11. Of Vonnegut's Dresden. Of Pearl Harbor. Because this is how it works, I think in scenes. But my daughter doesn't have a scene like this. I don't either, not a real one, except for 9/11—which left a deep aching imprint on anyone old enough to remember—which was also the same day, the same morning, that my husband left early for Washington, D.C. out of Rhode Island's T.F. Green via Pittsburgh, and lost contact with me for a good four hours. Nothing. His flight had been grounded in Pittsburgh once it was evident that we were under terrorist attack—wireless signals dead on the idling plane.
Clearly, Tuesday's flying machines were military—similar in size to the ones that used to buzz over the lake in Maine, before Bangor International changed their flight pattern, and nothing like the small, single engine Pipers that land at the towerless North Central airport in northern Rhode Island. I'd seen North Central's asphalt runways, been there with the kids to watch the lighter, sexier planes take off and land (what to do with your children on a Thursday afternoon), a pilot gave them plastic wing pins. Its largest runway is only 5,000 by 1,000 feet. Bangor's sole runway is nearly three times that—more than two miles long.
I read somewhere that Air Force One can land on a 4,000 foot runway so long as it's done with full reverse thrust, hard brakes and full spoilers and flaps. I've no idea what that means, but it sounds violent.
No, we're not going to be bombed, Lu. It was curious though. Planes flying low enough to trigger that ducking impulse. Low enough to take out one of Providence's skyscrapers (if Providence actually had skyscrapers). And the only airport at which they could land was miles away in the opposite direction. They were too low. Prematurely low. Disturbingly low.
Only minutes after they flew from view, as we headed up Bear Hill, we caught the nose of another bus-swallowing aircraft coming from the north and flying south, right above Abbott Run. I could feel its weight. A second plane followed just behind. Now it was more than curious. It was odd. Were these the same two planes that we had just witnessed jetting west? They couldn't have changed their flight direction that quickly.
We drove to the bank, made a rapid deposit, and returned home within ten minutes. As we climbed the deck stairs to the back side of the house we heard another magnificent roar, and from the north, again, appeared a smoky plane. From the deck's vantage point, it appeared to be a cargo carrier, a heavy, beat up old junker lumbering along at low altitude, blue exhaust pluming from behind.
It was no longer odd. It was concerning, as if we were being harassed. I went out to the empty street, expecting to see neighbors peering at the sky, but no one was outside. No one. Lu followed and hugged me with worry. They're in their basements!Call the police! she begged.
I didn't feel like this was a rational thing to do. Call the police. What if we were being harassed, what if terrorists had hijacked the planes intending to use them as shrapnel? What the hell could our town's policemen possibly do? Have another donut quick, guys, it's all over.
So I called the police (truly, I'm not the sort of hysteric that calls the police every time I notice something amiss). Have you, by chance, been getting calls about low flying planes? I asked, feeling as nutty as one might feel when making such a call.
Yeah, the officer answered quickly, we have and we have no idea what's going on. NO IDEA. Sorry.
Oh, really? It's...
NO IDEA. Sorry, he said again.
We turned on the evening news. Trending topics dominated, but it was silent as to airborne assaults, which I thought ought to be a trending topic.
Who does one call for the answer to why a half dozen military planes might have crossed through town a few hundred yards above one's rooftop? I thought about this all night. Would one call the FBI? Would one call 911 (as Lu also suggested)? Maybe one calls the local airport? Or, of course!, the Department of Defense. Or does one take swift, fiery notes and sketch an outline for her first sci-fi thriller? No, that's been done.
The real questions, though, the questions that flashed before me like the Vietnamese nail salon's neon sign on a steamy summer evening is who does one call if one is actually getting bombed? What's to prevent those steel barrels from falling from the sky? Why am I even thinking about bombardment? Why do I like that name: Bombardier? It's sexy I tell you, that's why. And why are planes so sexy?
Well, not all planes. Not planes that can be something else. Not the planes flying over my house early Tuesday night—the menacing planes—shame on them for bullying us, for blackening my idea of the airship as magical machine navigating above snowy gossamer pillows, away from the mundane, to some faraway exotic dream.
Fleet Foxes (go visit their website, it's fun—click back on Fleet Foxes after you visit each link) take me back to the days when planes were just planes. When the folk music of the 1960s and 70s was just folk music, like Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Simon and Garfunkel.
Their May 2011 release, Helplessness Blues (click to play the title song—you can also download and share it) is stunning. Gloriously stunning. Above-the-clouds stunning. It soars.
You sneak in during the middle of the night
thinking I might not notice or mind
like you've got carte blanche
to walk in unexpected, uninvited
You bastard
I've got your number
I've been held by the grip of your vice
countless times
hostage to your beastly manner
I ignore you
You bastard
You hum, warble in my ear
as I search for the dagger and venom
sharp elixir and vapor
with which I might slay you
For you are a mere illusion
that hurts
You bastard
I see you laugh under your breath
as you slowly turn the crank, Screw you
Forcing me to retract the insouciance I feint
as I lose control of the ship
Spiraling among white beams
and bubbly charcoal floaters
In a lugubrious, colorless, merciless sea
to the throbbing beat of your pulse
Fuck you
You bastard
The last time you slipped away
I'd hoped it was for good
Otherwise, there'd be a call
For something more effective
(than the ENT's feckless aresenal of pills)
Like a restraining order
Or a hit man
Contracts being my specialty
I'd scribe one immediately
if I could keep the light for a spell
to faintly see where you might sign
The agreement, including, but not limited to
conditions precedent
like prodrome and aura
so I might have fair warning
That my mind is in imminent danger
of being hijacked
by your suffocating hand, your persistent drone,
your deeply encoded paroxysms of pain
You bastard
Your time will come.
AND now, a love song...
John Darnielle, a former psychiatric nurse, writes some of my favorite short stories. And then he sets his revealing, expressive narratives to music, and sings them with The Mountain Goats (or solo). His sometimes morose, but always witty and snarly lyrics prompt smiles and reflection, with no shortage of eye winking. All Eternals Deck (2011) is the band's latest release.
You can find more on Darnielle here. Now, about that phone call...
(In the event you are wondering... No, the Friday Night Frolic will not become a forum for scrubby, lamebrained, habitual poetry—though I do enjoy serious and not so serious poems. The fragmented stanzas of poetry, in my case, lends itself to fits of cephalalgia, whereas the narrative is an arduous prospect during bouts of lamebrainitis. )
"They put the mask on me and Dr. T asked if I felt floaty and I said No, then he said to the nurse 'Ok, take it to three', and he asked me again if I felt floaty, and I said No, not really, so he said, 'Alright take it to four,' and then I felt floaty. I was so happy I laughed, and he went in with the tools and I kept laughing non-stop.
I closed my eyes and saw Katy Perry sitting on a light-pink cloud in a blue sky filled with pink puffy clouds, and Katy said, with a thumbs up, 'You got it, Girl,' and then I saw Snoop Dogg right next to her and I laughed again. Could you hear me? I think I was pretty loud. Dr. T. asked, 'Are you doing alright, Princess?' and I gave him a thumbs up and he pulled and pulled and that’s when I moaned. Did you hear me moan, Mom? a great big mwaaahhh. That hurt. Even with the gas it hurt.
Gauze was jammed in my mouth and they could hardly understand me shouting for you. But they told me not to worry, that you'd be right in after we were done. And when it was over they took me out and put me in a little room, that recovery room, and there you were.
Wait, were you already in the room before I got in, or did you come in after? I can’t remember. Oh God my cheeks hurt. I think the doctor did some kind of magic trick at the end and the nurses laughed, but I didn’t think it was that funny, whatever it was. I think nitrous oxide might be addictive, Mom. I like that floaty feeling. And Katy Perry giving me a thumbs up on a pink cloud. Yeah."
And this, she said, in one easy glissade, rolling from her dry, plasma-stained lips as if she had her tutu and Capezios on, ready for the ballet.
One thing is for certain. It takes no special effort to extract words from my daughter's mouth. Pulling teeth is another matter. Visions of a naked Katy Perry hugging the cotton candy cloud of her California Gurls video is ever so more disconcerting.
Once we were home my only desire was to quickly help Lulu forget about the quadruple extraction and Perry. I was prepared with my own magic trick: strawberry ice cream and a young, authentic chanteuse—Kimbra
And it worked. By her response to the enchanting, emotive twenty year old's music, I know the little one is soon to outgrow Perry—likely before the dramatic eruption of her adult molars. I pray.
In any event, do you think I should be concerned by the extent to which Lulu enjoyed her nitrous oxide gas moment?
When my son dressed in costume, for school, as "Mustache Man" last Friday—fashioning a mustache from duct tape and paper—I knew it was time to write about CAKE. And not the kind you eat. Not the chocolate variety that I love to whip up from time to time. Or that cake-like Whoopie Pie... oh, my. Speaking of... it's cold out there, maybe it is time for a little baking.
CAKE. Upon the release of their breakthrough album (do we still say "album"?) Fashion Nugget in 1996, I became an immediate fan. Their most recent album, Showroom of Compassion—which includes the song Mustache Man—is slated for a 2011 release, but available now for pre-sale via Cake's website or at Amazon.
CAKE. Imagine Devo, Was (Not Was), and the Talking Heads getting together in one room. Imagine what the three of these bands might spawn. Yes, lots of silliness. Much fun.
Here's a little CAKE (warning—this may leave you a little hungry, send you straight for the kitchen—take notes!):
What do you know, a band that cannot only make some very cool music, but can also cook up a gastronomic feast! Well, with a name like CAKE, you'd better have some culinary craft.
Yes, that's right, there is a bit of a monotone vocal delivery (intentionally?), but it only adds to CAKE's layering.
To wit:
CAKE. Fairly measured stuff. A recipe for lots of smiles.
A nascent ensemble. Indie, alternative, heady rock. Punky, funky, psychedelic songs, and some really rich lullabies from two Irishmen and one American, based in Donegal, IE and Cincinnati, OH (please excuse the use of multiple adjectives, Prof. B., but I just can't "choose one"—and I also happen to like rambling parentheticals—no worries, I will crystallize this for you here): A band namedVoodoo Loons. If you don't already have it, get SIRIUS radio—listen to Celtic Crush. A few years back, this labeless troupe released The Unabashedly Political Song(and how) from their only CD to date—Euphobia—of which they made hay. It is said that, after their performance at tomorrow's World Music Fest in Kentucky, the Voodoo Loons will embark on a coast-to-coast backpacking tour of Ireland, an odyssey likely to inspire some epic poetry. So stay tuned... I have a feeling that after they've schlepped the lush island's landscape, a golden stack of lyric will crystallize. No need to fear this good news.
The Felice Brothers—from the Catskill Mountains to New York City subway stations, a recording studio in an old chicken coop, voices reminiscent of Dylan, homegrown, gritty rock and harmonies, now touring the USA—finding their way to Pawtucket, RI, at the Met Cafe, Friday night, October 29, 2010!
