Virginia Tech Tangent And Talking About Kevin

I won’t bore you with more of the banality already permeating the blogosphere’s attempts at gun control discussions in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, neither will I bother with some empty words about my heart going out to the bereaved families. Words like “sympathy” and “empathy” get misused all over the place when stuff like this happens, but frankly I’ve always felt what the English language actually needs is a word where you acknowledge your complete inability to imagine or fathom what a suddenly bereaved family is going through, because you simply haven’t experienced anything even remotely analogous. I think it’s more respectful.

But anyway, the reason I mentioned this at all was just to highly recommend We Need To Talk About Kevin (Lionel Shriver) to anyone who hasn’t already read it. I don’t think I managed to write about it here at the time I read it – strange that I did write about Vernon God Little since I don’t think that’s anywhere as good on the same topic – but it was one of the best books I read last year. Call me a philistine but good prose alone is never quite enough to secure my allegiance to a book if its plot or ideas don’t impress me. This one has everything – good writing and characterization (you might feel a bit irritated by the snottiness of the narrator at the start, but press on), ideas about motherhood that I’d never read much about before, and as for plot let me just ask you to do yourself a favour, trust me that this book is worth reading, and don’t read the Amazon reviews in case they’ve got spoilers.

Is it ridiculous of me to suggest you read a work of fiction at a time when more than enough horrifying details about a real crime are flooding the newswires? Perhaps, but if the topic does interest you, this book allows you a more contemplative take on things than finding yourself riveted, despite yourself and more out of rubbernecking curiosity than any higher motive, to online videos of Cho’s demented ramblings. Which is why I have closed those Firefox tabs and decided to reread the book instead. Your mileage may vary.

1UP

I was wandering round City Plaza and spotted this shop.

I normally keep random camphone shots like this for my own amusement and don’t bother to post them here, but since I only just discovered last week that you can play Super Mario Brothers and about a million other old console games online without having to do the whole emulator thing, I figured spotting the shop might have been a karmic directive from the cosmos to share the link. Just to make sure all your lives get ruined too, you understand.

My Deer Fiance

We’re trying to choose a videographer for the wedding at the moment, and part of this exercise involves watching a bunch of online samples almost universally soundtracked with From This Moment On. I do actually kinda love that song, but it’s not really us. A conversation on the subject:

Me: How about something by the Pixies, we both like that band.
Alec: [big happy face]
Me: I know what you’re thinking and NO WE CAN’T USE CARIBOU! The song has to be at least vaguely relevant to the topic of love!
Alec: We could change the chorus to “Marry you”.
Me: ……
Alec, singing: MARRY YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…

Jaga Jazzist (Esplanade, Singapore, 13 March 2007)

Before Tuesday’s Jaga Jazzist gig I’d listened to their albums now and then over the years but often found myself zoning out and switching to catchier stuff. Experimental jazz just doesn’t push my buttons the way squalling guitars or hip-hop beats do. But when choosing which Mosaic gigs to go for I had a hunch that they’d sound better live than they do in my bedroom, so I took the risk – and damn, if all risks we take in life could yield such amazing payoffs I’d be a self-made stock market trillionaire and spend my free time snowboarding nude down Everest.

You might think a band in love with the sound of their own music would be off-putting but Jaga Jazzist’s unadulterated joy in their performance is absolutely infectious. So many bands’ live shows end up somewhere near either end of the spectrum between pure technical finesse and pure showmanship – Jaga Jazzist simply show up at the sweet spot representing the perfect combination of both and live there the whole gig. They play tighter together than any philharmonic orchestra I’ve ever seen, but unlike any philharmonic orchestra I’ve ever seen they love having the audience clap along.

You know how on reality TV when people are imploring the viewers to vote them into the next round, they always promise they’ll give “200%” in order to improve and blah blah blah? Most people just say stuff like that without really thinking about it, but the Jaga Jazzist gig was like a live demonstration of what it should mean. After each song you can’t believe they still have the strength to continue. I’d assumed their rambunctious drummer/conductor/spokesperson was just trying to put on a good show for the start of the gig but would have to wind down his efforts soon enough to conserve energy. Instead, I think he only got more ebullient as the night wore on. As someone who’s played in an orchestra I can definitely tell you that long instrumental pieces are way more tiring than they might seem from the audience, and I only played the damn violin!

The highlight of the gig for me was the song Oslo Skyline, which they “renamed” Singapore Skyline for the night. It was a showcase of everything that had blown the audience away during the gig – their individual virtuosity, their breathtaking co-ordination as an ensemble, and the amazing light design (it had been really beautiful throughout the gig but reached its nadir here). It was one of the most memorable moments of live music I have ever had the privilege of experiencing, and earned an instantaneous and universal standing ovation.

If you think I’m veering into hyperbole, the truth is that any purely verbal description anyone could give of this gig would actually be an understatement. If you were there, I’m sure you understand what I mean. If you weren’t, beg, borrow or steal to make sure you watch them the next opportunity you get. You don’t need to like their music beforehand – I certainly didn’t, and I can’t even begin to imagine what this gig must have been like for someone who was already a big fan of their sound – as long as you love any music at all, just turn up and I truly believe they’ll do the rest.

Yo La Tengo (Esplanade, Singapore, 12 March 2007)

Let me make this clear upfront, I’m not capable of being very objective about a Yo La Tengo gig so this isn’t a review, it’s just the attempt of a rather verklempt fangirl to capture how tonight made her feel.

About ten years ago, I bought my first Yo La Tengo album. Coming across it by chance while browsing in Borders, I recognised the name from lonely Internet indie wanderings and BigO magazine reviews, so although Electr-O-Pura didn’t sound like the most promising of album names I decided it was worth risking the $16 (yes, Borders sold a fair number of good indie albums for cheap back then) and snapped it up. Ten years later I’m home from my third Yo La Tengo gig, and the fact that they’re still able to make me feel the wonder and excitement I felt when I first heard Electr-O-Pura is meaningful in all sorts of ways that are hard to talk about without sounding cheesy. So consider yourselves warned.

Setlist:

  • From A Motel 6
  • Our Way To Fall
  • Pass The Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind
  • Little Eyes
  • The Weakest Part
  • Beanbag Chair
  • Mr Tough
  • I Feel Like Going Home
  • Big Day Coming
  • Tom Courtenay
  • Watch Out For Me Ronnie
  • The Story Of Yo La Tango

Encores:

  • We’re An American Band
  • You Can Have It All

It was quite a short gig (about 90 minutes) – their time was limited because Rickie Lee Jones was playing later on. But given that I emerged from the first time I saw them (where they played much longer) unable to speak, perhaps it was for the best.

As you can see from the setlist, they played a number of songs from the new album, most of which were as fun as they are on the recording but not particularly different either. Unfortunately, they didn’t play Black Flowers. But fortunately, they played the fuck out of The Story Of Yo La Tango. I have not the words. All I can say is that there was a lot of beautiful noise for a very long time, and at the end half the audience sprang to their feet screaming.

Apart from the new album, they played 2 songs from Painful, which is my favourite YLT album, so yay! They started the gig with From A Motel 6 and later played the rawk version of Big Day Coming, with Ira on keyboards literally tottering under his assault. They launched from that straight into Tom Courtenay, which is one of my favourite songs from Electr-O-Pura and OF MY ENTIRE LIFE, so um, yeah, little tears.

From And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out they did a lovely Our Way To Fall and a slightly disappointing stripped-down (yes, even more stripped down) version of You Can Have It All which didn’t really work for me. Only one nod to Summer Sun, which is fair, and Little Eyes features the coolness of Georgia drumming and singing lead vocals at the same time, so I was happy there too.

When they walked off the stage after The Story Of Yo La Tango, I was surprised they hadn’t played anything from I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One yet, but placed my hope in the encore. When they came back on Ira asked some members of the audience for requests. The first guy apparently said “Anything” and the second guy was drowned out by everyone else in the audience shouting our own requests. After the third guy Ira climbed back on stage saying they’d try his request but didn’t know if they had enough time, then launched into We’re An American Band. I’d have slightly preferred Deeper Into Movies but it was great to hear this too, so thanks, third guy!

After the gig there was an autograph session for the first 60 people who bought an album at the merchandise stand, so I bought the new one and got in line. At this point the shaking and slight teariness that started during Tom Courtenay came back, so I spent most of my time in the queue quietly freaking out. I had no idea what to say to them, but because music (not lyrics, just music) makes me more emotional than books or movies ever have, it was looking highly possible that I might burst into tears.

My turn came. This is how I remember it going:
Me (lots of stammering edited out): Um, I can’t really talk about 10 years of listening to you in 10 seconds, so I’ll just say thank you. Thank you so much.
YLT members: [general smiles and thank yous]
Me, babbling on: I’ve seen you 3 times now, and each time you’ve been wonderful. [They’d finished signing my CD by now so I staggered off figuring I might as well make my escape before I said something truly mortifying.]
YLT members (I don’t remember who said what), calling after me: Where were the other 2 times?
Me: London. [Staggering off again.]
YLT members, calling after me again: Where in London?
Me (stammering): Shepherd’s Bush and Somerset House. [At this point my descent begins.] It was a crime that you opened for Calexico, they should have opened for you.
YLT members: [Laughing.]
Me: [Finally staggering off for good.]

Look, it could have been worse. My idea of what constituted “a crime” was clearly lame (also a little unfair given that I actually love Calexico, just not as much as I love YLT), but at least I didn’t cry. And sitting in my room a few hours later, it’s already easy enough to forget my lameness. My abiding memory of this night will remain those ten seconds where with all my bumbling sincerity I finally got the chance to tell some of the musicians who have given me the most happiness in my life of loving music: thank you. I don’t expect this to mean much to anyone else or even to the band themselves, but it meant a whole lot to me.

Lindy-Hop You Don’t Stop

My So You Think You Can Dance obsession in December guilt-tripped me into returning to lindy-hopping when I realized I was shaping up to be a future world champion of So You Think You Can Sit On Your Ass For Hours On End, plus we’re toying with the idea of doing a lindy-hop first dance at our wedding, so I resurfaced at Jitterbugs and signed up for SEA Jam 2007.

Now judging from the pattern of the last three years, my personal lindy-hop revivals never last more than a few months before the intensely cliquish Jitterbugs crowd puts me off and I disappear. But while I’m still on a high from last weekend, I thought I might as well share a couple of Youtube finds. Whenever it comes up in conversation that I lindy-hop/swing dance, the next question people always ask is whether I get thrown around a lot and it’s always tough to explain without a demonstration that there’s so much more to the dance than that.

But first, while we’re on the subject I do still have to show you some of the finest throwing around ever captured on film, Hellzapoppin’. (The dancing only starts at 2.45 minutes but the bit before that is pretty cute if you like old movies.)

Hellzapoppin’ also sets the stage for you to imagine how cool it is to be able to take classes from the choreographer of that dance scene, Frankie Manning. He was 26 when Hellzapoppin’ came out in 1941. He’s 93 this year, doesn’t look much older than 75, and is still swingin’ every time he comes to teach at SEA Jam. Here’s Frankie dancing on the eve of his 92nd birthday.

And here are last year’s US Open Showcase Swing champions Ben Morris and Carla Heiney doing their championship routine. They came to teach too and we got to see them do this again at the closing party.

As I mentioned in my Benji Schwimmer fangirl post, I love the improvisation of Jack and Jill competitions but it’s surprisingly hard to find examples on Youtube of the musicality and playfulness I love watching every week in Jitterbugs over here. The best example I could find is this choreographed Jack and Jack which might sound strange to someone who doesn’t do lindy but yeah, lindy-hop leads generally seem to love them a little homoeroticism and they’re often at their hilarious best when they dance with another guy. I long for the day Alec takes his first, uh, slash at it.

Lastly, for any of you who just don’t dig lindy-hop or swing dancing despite what you’ve seen through this post and the I Heart Benji one, I bet you didn’t know Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage are swing dancers too. Recognize.

Good Vibrations 2007

I’m not a huge fan of any of the bands that played at Good Vibrations, but who passes up the opportunity to see the Beastie Boys and Jurassic 5 in Singapore for $40? Kudos to the organizers, I hope it was worth your while and that you do it again.

I haven’t really listened much to J5 since 2000 apart from a couple of unsuccessful attempts to enjoy their latest album in preparation for this festival, so I couldn’t identify that many songs apart from the old classics. Still, I’ve always had a soft spot for this sort of old-school ensemble rapping so I didn’t have to find the songs familiar in order to enjoy them. Highlights for me were Jayou and Quality Control; they also played Concrete Schoolyard and Improvise but I’ve never been that fond of those. I apologise to anyone I might have startled when I burst out with “FINALLY!” when the flute sample in Jayou, er, finally kicked in, because doing half the song without it constitutes cruelty to Michelles.

Don’t hate me, but I’m not a big fan of the Beastie Boys. I realize they’re hugely significant and all, and appreciate the effort they put into good performances and videos, but something in their flow just doesn’t do it for me. (I attempted to explain it here but actually, I still can’t.) Also, given that all the Beastie Boys albums I own are from the days when cassettes still ruled (i.e. any album before Hello Nasty, which I did buy on CD but later sold), I wasn’t exactly able to do much memory refreshment in preparation for their performance either. Based on the songs I did recognise though, they did Root Down, Sure Shot, Ch-Check It Out, one of the better instrumentals from Ill Communications, No Sleep Till Brooklyn, So Whatcha Want, Body Moving, 3 MCs and 1 DJ and unsurprisingly, Intergalactic and Sabotage for the encore. One thing I did enjoy was how they’d do half a song to its original beats, then Mix Master Mike would switch to beats from a fairly recent top 40 hit and they’d just continue with that. It worked well and kept things refreshing for me, plus everything just sounds great to the beat of Pass That Dutch.

Lastly, no account of Good Vibrations 2007 would be complete without paying tribute to these particular members of the audience. In the name of bad 70s fashion, wearing wigs and fake moustaches in Singapore heat, entering and staying in character even before the Beastie Boys were performing, and of course posing so awesomely for my photo, I salute you.

Beastie Audience Boys

Nancy Drew (Ron Koertge)

Today’s Writer’s Almanac poem made me smile, though I hate that I can’t remember whether the poem’s referencing an actual case-file from one of the books or not.

Nancy Drew (Ron Koertge)

Merely pretty, she made up for it with vim.
And she got to say things like, “But, gosh,
what if these plans should fall into the wrong
hands?” and it was pretty clear she didn’t mean
plans for a party or a trip to the museum, but
something involving espionage and a Nazi or two.

In fact, the handsome exchange student turns
out to be a Fascist sympathizer. When he snatches
Nancy along with some blueprints, she knows he
has something more sinister in mind than kissing
her with his mouth open

Read the rest

Gig Bites

Because I’ve had the curious problem of not being able to write about each new music event I’ve attended because I’m hung up about not having written about the last one, here are some quick memory-filing notes about the last bunch of events I’ve been to, just to clear my mental RAM in preparation for Good Vibrations and Mosaic. (And in April, All Tomorrow’s Parties!)

  • Eclectic Method (Zouk, 10 Nov 06): After two years of waiting to see them, I was bitterly disappointed. Too much lazy use of catchy crowd-pleaser beats like from Drop It Like It’s Hot as a substitute for doing stuff that was actually interesting.

  • Gamelan Shokbrekker (Esplanade, 25 Nov 06): The bare bones breakdown is that it was a collaboration between an Indonesian gamelan orchestra and Norwegian free jazz musicians, but the incredible synergy the performers managed to create between their different musical styles is really just something you had to be there to understand. (If you’re interested though, try the recordings here from their 2006 London Jazz Festival performance.) I love Mogwai and all, but don’t underestimate the intricate mesmerizing wall of sound a determined gamelan orchestra is capable of. Gig of the year for me.

  • Kid Koala (Red Dot Design Museum, 20 Dec 06): About four times as crowded as his first visit here, and not even half as good. Still, his inherent adorability always makes me want to get all Elmira on his ass.

  • DJ Kentaro (Ministry of Sound, 8 Feb 07): His On The Wheels Of Solid Steel mixtape’s been one of my iPod stalwarts since its release, so I was pretty excited to see him. He was brought in as part of some HP promo event presumably intended to demonstrate how technology brings da world togetha, so there were performances by various artists going on sequentially in Singapore, KL, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and linked by live video hookups between the various countries. Unfortunately through cluelessness I think we must have managed to miss the live transmissions of both the performances we were there to see (Kentaro and Hifana), so thank God Kentaro came on again after the live transmission was over and did another set, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Hip-hop, old and new drum’n’bass, club salsa (I think it was, but all Latin music sounds the same to me so I could be wrong), Coldcut’s Timber (wish he’d also shown the video though), bits of that organ sample, everything got seamlessly and effortlessly mixed with just the right amount of turntable pyrotechnics. And all for only about 30 people on the dancefloor. Party on, Singapore.

Sonic Youth Snark Snippets

I haven’t bothered to read many reviews of The Destroyed Room, the new Sonic Youth rarities collection, because, well, good or bad reviews are fairly irrelevant to my need to own anything Sonic Youth, but as it turns out I’m quite happy I wandered into this one at Stylus. It’s worth reading in its entirety, but here are some especially funny snippets:

“In an effort, presumably, to stay lock-step with Ghostface in the holiday odds £ sods market, the Yoof have put together The Destroyed Room: B-Sides and Rarities or More Fish for Balding White Music Critics.”

“The Diamond Sea, which originally clocked in at 19 minutes, wasn’t exactly yearning for an extended mix.”

“If you own all this material, congratulations: you are probably David Fricke or Lee Ranaldo’s mother.”