Kimchi Time

Chop and I had a great weekend.  We went down to the old folks home and kidnapped our old man.  He doesn't remember who we are anymore, and that's half the fun.  The old man is a complete kook, and it gets even more dicey when we fill him full of booze.

First thing was to sit him on our porch and stick a joint of dry, brown Mexican weed in his mouth.  We even put multiple seeds in it, so when they pop, the embers burn holes in his nightgown.  Then we put our special Bloody Mary mix in his hand.  We use three fifth's vodka, two fifth's ice and two tablespoons of tomato juice.  Once his eyes were rolling, it was time to take him to dinner.  This week's choice was Kimchi Time.  Quite a hokey name, but upon reconsideration, a perfectly cutesy fit for a Korean restaurant.

Our old man wrestled with the seat belt the entire drive to the restaurant.  It was sort of like a before dinner show.  Little did he know, we closed the door on the head of the seat belt, so he never had a chance.  He is so much fun.  Once we arrived at the restaurant, we shuffled him in and ordered him a Soju.  Soju isn't quite as strong as vodka, but it got the old man Popeyed.  He spent most the time scanning the crowd with one eye closed like he was looking for someone he recognized, while we enjoyed pork belly kimchi stir fry and beef short rib soup with mandu dumplings and rice cakes.  Kimchi Time is the only restaurant in town that serves the pork belly kimchi stir fry.  They also use a purple house rice blend, which further sets it apart from other Korean restaurants in town.

We let the old man play with some tofu.  Once dinner was finished, we took the tofu away from Pops and let him wander around the parking lot like a three hundred pound baby.  Then we put him in the car and shut the door on the seat belt again.  We needed a few more good laughs to help us digest our food.  So we took the long way back to the old folks home to maximize his seat belt frustration.  Then we left him at the lobby roundabout and watched the nurses escort him back in through our rear view mirror.

We love that old fart, but only for a few hours a month and after his afternoon Alzheimer's twilight fits. 

karat

Neutral Milk Hotel Live 4-18-14

In an Airplane Over the Sea is this generation's Sergeant Pepper's, just as tights are this decade's pants.  Furthermore, we understand that to deny tights are pants is misogynistic slut-shaming, just as to deny anyone the joy of listening to In an Airplane is pretentious snobbery. 

Neutral Milk Hotel has two LP's and two EP's, all of which span from 1992 to 1998.  Karat and I weren't exposed to In an Airplane until 2000.  So we recognize that there are some of you out there more hip to the NMH scene than us.  This also means that we had to wait until 2013 before we got our chance to see a live version of this music.

In March of 2013, we got the opportunity to see Jeff Mangum perform NMH songs as a solo act.  He sat on a chair in the middle of the stage with his long beard and belted songs to a crowd of fist pumping beef cakes, douche bags, brody chops and buff chucks.  We loved the experience, but we were puzzled at the crowd, almost scared at times.  However, it went well and everyone ate it up.

This year we got the opportunity to see the whole band.  The crowd this time contained incessant screaming ladies and testicle popping skinny jeans.  And it was a better experience than the solo show, once we moved to the back of the room.

The combined experience of the Mangum set and the NMH set were something unique and unforgettable.  This year's show started with Mangum on stage alone and the song "Two-Headed Boy."  It was as if we were right back at the solo show from the previous year.  I even looked at Karat and whispered, "deja vuski."  Then the rest of the band took the stage as the song bridged towards "The Fool," and the horn section lit up in the most hair raising moments of live entertainment we have ever seen.  It was as if this year's full band setup was the encore to the solo act of last year's Mangum set.

The combination of both shows is a bit like watching someone jump on Anne Frank's preserved bed in Amsterdam while "Holland, 1945" is playing on full blast.  NMH's cult following is kind of a shame, and a lot of fans weren't even old enough to fingerbang when we came to love these albums.  But who fucking cares?  Let them crowd around and scream.  We'll just move to the back of the room.  We needed to cool down anyway from that horn session.

chop

Liars - Mess

God damn, these guys are cool.  We've followed them for a lot of years.  "Mr. You're on Fire Mr." from They Threw Us All in a Trench... burned down many of the places we've lived.  This album also lead us to another band, Emerald Sapphire and Gold, while EP Fins to Make Us More Fish-Like offered us "Every Day is a Child with Teeth" and deeper love for lyrical inversions, e.g. "dance like a girl/ pee like a boy/ dance like a boy/ pee like a girl."  Mess is back at it with these two forms.  The combustibility is here and the lyrical inversions kick start the album, "Take my pants off/ use my socks/ eat my face off/ take my face/ give me your face..."  Your wish is our command.

We began our obsession with Liars while going through a phase.  We were trying to define for ourselves this term "math rock."  The math rock genre has a lot of facets that lead us to the Liars, but doesn't quite define them.  However, we will try to create a circle that encompasses a few bands we found similar at the time.  The Ex-Models' Zoo Psychology helps fill the circle with their raw energy, especially the medley "Intro"/"Pink Noise" with that consistent note like a touch-tone phone left off the hook, and medley "The Password is Pelican"/"Three Weeks" which bridges one of the greatest tension-release moments we've ever experienced.  Bloc Party, in particular their song "Banquet," also helps fill the circle with their pure angular dance energy.  We'll let you fill in the rest.

But the album is a lot of fun, and we want to demonstrate it for you.  Here is an interactive exercise.  Start these two clips simultaneously.  Mute the second one.  Then simply replay the second clip until the song ends.  We're sure that after the third replay of the second clip, you'll see what we're getting at.  Enjoy.

karat y chop

Broken Bells Live 4-13-14 (spoiler alert)

Do you know what the great pink globe on the cover of the newest Broken Bells album represents?  Is it significant enough to consider?  We recently read an article about the upcoming Wu Tang album called A Better Tomorrow.  Leading member Rza has hatched a plan to tour the newest Wu Tang album as an art installation.  Only one copy of the album will be made.  It will tour the world.  Willing fans will pay an entrance fee, pass through security measures, and have the opportunity to listen to the album.  Once the album tour is over, the single copy will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

First off, we hope the highest bidder is a competitor like talent succubus Jay-Z.  We hope some sycophant spends the equivalent of the price of college educations for the entire population of New York City on this album and then tosses it into the fire before the rest of us can hear it.  We need to behave in this manner for something so important, in order to make it meaningful.

Second, does anyone remember the box that Thomas Eckhardt leaves Andrew Packard and his sister Catherine Martell in the television series Twin Peaks?  If we remember correctly, the puzzle box contained a second puzzle box.  The second puzzle box contained a third puzzle box.  The third puzzle box contained a metal box.  The metal box contained a safety deposit box key.  When the safety deposit box was opened with this key, it exploded the bank and everyone within it.  Goodbye forever, hip hop. 

Lastly, this is where we get real nasty.  Toting yourself as supreme is only an attempt to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, or culture than is actually possessed.  We loved 36 Chambers because we were young, and Wu Tang was young.  We still love this album.  But upon repeat listens, it's pretty bad.  Come on, face it.  Return to some of the lyrics yourself.  We counted forms of the word "nigger" more than fifty times.  Remember that we read the word "nigger" in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn to a sickening degree.  And the lesson is that this word was used in history with bad intentions.  The purpose of Twain's realist art is to show us how sick this word is, and show us a part of history that is ugly, a history that we should have overcome.  We get the sense that this word is never used on the 36 Chambers album for right reason, or intentionally meaningful artistic intent.  We would also like to point out that of all the members on this album, our favorite rapper Old Dirty Bastard, the potentially most offensive member of the group, uses the word the least, except for maybe U-God.

So back to the original question.  Do you know what the pink globe on the cover of the newest Broken Bells album means?  If we are going to have a serious conversation about art, we have to discuss things like "right reason" and "intentions."  Furthermore, words are very interesting.  We use some words to identify ourselves, e.g. "nigger."  Other words are said and their meaning is immediately contradicted, e.g. "I am humble."  We get the feeling that both uses of words that we have just described are at work here when Rza describes Wu Tang's next album as "art."

karat y chop

Neko Case Live 4-12-14

Neko Case does something very well.  She takes the southwestern musical tradition and puts it in a bottle that everyone can hold up to their ear and identify.  Echoing in this same bottle are Emmylou Harris, Giant Sand era Howe Gelb, Calexico, Catholics era Frank Black and others of the like.  We suggest that this bottle be plugged, tossed into the ocean, and discovered in the future.  We'll help describe this disparate future for you.

There once was a time when barrooms were filled with the naturally sweet smoke of tobacco.  In the future, metallic sanitary devices will turn nicotine juice into vapor.  Where there once was the flicker of matches and controlled fire, the ambiance will be replaced by people who aim little communication devices at the band and blind them with useless flashes in order to capture the performance, rather than remember it.  Where beer went down smooth and ice cold, it will be replaced with skunky macrobrew at $8 a plastic cup.  In this future, barrooms won't even exist.  Instead, we will pay $40 apiece to gain entrance into crammed ancient theaters where we stand on one another and clap in unison for an obligatory encore.  Bands themselves will quit a few songs early, in order to oblige this requirement.

The authenticity of the music is not the problem.  It's the fact that in this future we will have bred our souls too thin, or we will have bred soul out completely.  Individuals and choice will no longer have any meaning.  Instead, we will be reduced to an electronic page of information, the amalgam of which will define how we are no different from the other drones in our human hive.  We will line up for our prescription Levi Trucker jackets and our mandatory beards.  If and when we uncover that lost bottle of music, our dejected and dismal soul residue will resonate with the steel guitar and we will vaguely wish for a Nashvillian past that will never again return.  

karat y chop

The War on Drugs Live 4-8-14

You can watch the war on drugs every night on your television.  Or you can see it in the eyes of most police officials.  Or you can take part in it yourself by calling up your "man."  We decided to join in it last night live.

The War on Drugs is on tour promoting their latest album Lost in the Dream.  This is their third studio album and does its job to separate itself from original member Kurt Vile.  Enough said about the album itself and the connection to Vile.  If you like them, you already have it.  If you haven't heard it, its good.  And to quote Biggie Smalls, "If you don't know, now you know, nigga."

The band does rely on a drumming technique called Motorik.  This drum beat has never really gone away since its conception, but it has resurfaced with much gusto in the past decade, and in some of our favorite bands.  For originality's sake, check the six armed drummer of Can, the robot drummer of Neu! or newer songs like Wilco's Spiders (Kidsmoke), The Sea and Cake's Inn Keeping, Yo La Tengo's Stupid Things, and anything BEAK.

Motorik has the effect of keeping your head bobbing, and induced puking during morning-after hangovers.  It's also a little bit sexy.  And sex is how we would like to describe the show last night.  We'll only end note Granduciel's awesome little yell in Red Eyes and throughout the album, his Bob Dylan vocal flairs and his, did we say Bob Dylan, momentary spurts of harmonica.  We'd like to get back to the sex.  The set lasted more than two hours.  We're not complaining.  We know you're jealous.  But don't be jealous of the wrong things.

The show went on like a motor.  We bobbed our heads until our knees were weak.  We sweated.  We might have eventually given up.  But The War on Drugs kept chugging along to an initially wild event, which kept moving toward exhaustion.  Then we rode our bikes home and complained in private about our crotches being sore.  Again, we aren't complaining.  We know you're jealous.

karat y chop

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson builds his latest film quite like the Mendl's bakery cakes that we find in the movie.  The plot is baked into a story, baked into a tale, baked in a journey and possibly baked into a relationship.  We'll take some time to pull back the layers, but we won't go any further as to ruin your own virgin experience.  We will only suggest that this film is sugary sweet, and at the same time quite possibly the darkest and most blood soaked of all Anderson's films.  So we might call this beautiful bit of storytelling, faux historical noir blood layer cake.

Let's just dedicate a moment to the neat bit of storytelling that occurs here.  The movie is in fact a fictional book--baked in the mind of Wes Anderson--read by a young punk rocker.  The book is a first person account of a conversation between two people, the author and a wealthy, through circumstance, owner of the Hotel Budapest.  The conversation is a first person account and journey of the owner of the hotel from lobby boy to current owner.  The first person account also chronicles the life and relationship built between the hotel lobby boy and the concierge.

The layering metaphor is furthered through a meal that takes place between the narrator of the book and the wealthy owner of the Hotel Budapest.  As the courses of the meal occur, we progress through the story by aperitif, hors d'oevres, main course, dessert, and then digestif.

Can we make this any more complicated?  Well, yes.  But we'll simply summarize Anderson's ability to pull the story together with the image of the Mendl's bakery cakebox.  The story is soft and sweet, baked in layers of pastel fondant, tiered ever so smaller with detail as it rises, placed in a sharp little box that collapses to reveal itself when you pull the ribbon that ties it together. 

We'll leave it to you to dig your experiential fork into the moist inner cake to reveal those dark and blood soaked intricacies that we described in the first paragraph of this review.  Bon Appetit.

karat y chop