A review in 9 parts.
By Chuck Funk
DCfC started off as a band with an earnestness and a sweet hooker with a heart of gold swagger that easily habituated in the emo movement. Maybe it was the turn of the century angst or the post y2k bliss that formed the band's view of the world. They have always balanced sadness and hope like children on the see saw of life. Sadness needs to lose a few pounds.
Johnny Book Report: What does that mean?
Chuck Funk: What does what mean? Let me do my review.
The latest album by Ben Gibbard's boys is Plans. An interesting if pedantic look into the cloying world that every 20-30 year old with dreams lives in. The lyrics are sad in an obvious way like the poetry of May Sarton. But the joyfulness lives on through the bouncing vibe of Crooked Teeth , cleverly turning phrases like that cagey old Brit Jerome K. Jerome in Three Men in a Boat.
Johnny Book Report: Okay seriously, what the fuck are you doing?
Chuck Funk: I'm trying to review this album dammit. I'm trying to enlighten the reader.
JBR: Enlighten? How? Nobody knows who Jerome K. Jerome or May Sarton is. Comparing someone's work to something that they've never heard of isn't enlightenment. Its just you jerking off to your own knowledge. This review isn't about the reader it's about you.
CF: Part of reviewing albums is comparing them to important works of the past. Don't let your ignorance stop a good review. Maybe you'll be interested in Jerome K. Jerome's work now.
JBR: Not likely. The reason why no one trusts music reviewers anymore is they spend so much time sucking from their own teat that they haven't noticed they don't make sense to most people anymore. But I digress...
The album opens with Marching Band of Manhattan that is an obvious homage to the work of Ken Gjemre. It begins slowly, much like Stillwater's career pre-Feverdog...
JBR: I will punch you in the face.
CF: What now?
JBR: Dude, c'mon. I know what you're doing.
CF: No you don't. Stick to books.
JBR: Yes I do. We're the same fucking person you moron. You're getting these random poets and author's names off the Half Price books calendar at our desk. Ken Gjemre isn't even a cockknocking author he's the founder of the book store.
CF: No he's not.
JBR: Yes he is you twit.
CF: Stop trying to discredit me.
JBR: Stillwater was the band on Almost Famous you dingleberry.
CF: Oh it's on.
JBR: It's on? God you're a dork. By the time I'm done you'll be ghost like swayze.
Hey kids, Harmon here. While the two sides of my brain fight it out I thought I'd just handle both of their jobs. So, howsabout a Harmy Book Report mixed with a little musical observation just for you?
I just completed the latest book by Dave Eggers. He of the pulitzer nominated memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. This is currently, and for the past 5 years or so, my favorite book of all time. Hey James Frey, for tips on how to do a memoir right you may want to check this little tome out of your local library sometime.
How We are Hungry is a collection of short stories by Eggers that deal with a wide variety of topics. Most of which involve young adults having one last fling with impropriety or goofballness or whatever before becoming full fledged adults and settling down. Short story collections are very much like albums in that they need to have a central theme but also have unique chapters within. This book does handle that well enough. And much like most albums there are a few clunkers in the collection.
Much like Death Cab Egger's best stuff comes about when he's seemingly down and out but looking up. Your Mother and I - a story about all the ridiculously amazing things a couple did before the kids were born (solving pollution, world peace, etc) is a lot of fun. Up the Mountain coming down slowly - a novella (almost anyway) about a young woman climbing Mt. Kiliminjaro and finding it satisfying for all of 2 seconds before sadness and life come screaching back into view. And the end piece After I was thrown in the River and Before I Drowned - a story written in 1st person about a dog who loves to run and jump and be free before finally succumbing to the long nap in a patch of sunshine.
These stories don't seem that related but they are. Much like I'll Follow You into the Dark and Brothers on a Hotel Bed from Plans they key off each other. Evoke similar moods. And yes, are about the same thing. Almost all of the stories in Eggers' book are about how important things are when you're young and free and how things change when you grow up. The parents did all these amazing things in Mother and I BEFORE the kids were born. The young woman climbs a fucking mountain feeling the joy of achievement and freedom from being a stranger in a strange land and then realizes that she has to go back to normal life, to adulthood, immediately. And the dog in the final piece? He's young and free and healthy...and then he dies.
I suppose I should find it troubling that I enjoyed the story about the dog the most.
Rating
Death Cab for Cutie - Plans: Awesome
Dave Eggers - How We are Hungry: Awesome
2 comments:
I haven't met this new music critic around the office yet, but he seems like an upstanding citizen, not like the denizens that currently habitate around said locale. His taste in music, unfortunately appears to be slightly skewed, however a no doubt an effect worthy of remedy.
As for Eggers, I tried on serveral occasions to read Heart Staggering and could never get into it.
you should try the mountain one. it's pretty good. i'm currently reading Raymond Carver stories, and i see a connection here (blow it our your arse JBR, at least you should have heard of Carver). he's more along the lines of writing about people who DONT do amazing things with their lives before they grow up. the connector i see is that the attitues of Egger's characters and Carver's characters are still basically the same, having done or not done. to do or not to do??? will i feel the same?
dr g
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