Lauren Hall (editor)–I Live Real Close to Where You Used to Live: Kids’ Letters to Michelle Obama (and to Sasha, Malia, and Bo) (2010)

SOUNDTRACK: SHARON VAN ETTEN-Tiny Desk Concert, November 14, 2010 (2010). I was introduced to Sharon Van Etten via NPR’s All Songs Considered, so it’s no surprise that they would have her on a Tiny Desk Concert as well.  I loved her song, “Save Yourself” more than I could imagine.  There was something about the way [...]

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Jonathan Franzen–”Agreeable” (New Yorker, May 31, 2010)

SOUNDTRACK: ART BRUT Live from the 9:30 Club, November 29, 2007 (2007). I’ve really enjoyed Art Brut’s two albums.  They are funny but they are not jokey.  They also rock really hard with wonderful, angular punk. Sometimes I’ve felt the albums are a little bit…shall we say…perfect.  They are very tight and polished on record [...]

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Jonathan Franzen–”Good Neighbors” (New Yorker, June 8 & 15, 2009)

SOUNDTRACK: PHOENIX-Tiny Desk Concert, May 18, 2010 (2010). I’m really enjoying these Tiny Desk concerts.  They’re sort of unplugged, but even less so, because they just don’t give the band room enough for more than guitars and small accessories. If you watch the video, you can see that they are literally in someone’s office! This [...]

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Roberto Bolaño–The Insufferable Gaucho (2003/trans 2010).

SOUNDTRACK: ATERCIOPELADOS-El Dorado (1995). One of the other Rock en Español bands I bought in the 90s was Aterciopelados (the hardest to pronounce).  Aterciopelados come from Colombia and they play a variety of styles of music.  They also feature a female vocalist (Andrea Echeverri) who has a great voice in a variety of styles. The opening [...]

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Wells Tower–”On the Show” (Harper’s, May 2007)

SOUNDTRACK: DUDLEY MOORE & PETER COOK-”Bedazzled” (1967). I learned about this song when John Lydon was a DJ on NPR’s All Songs Considered.   His collection of songs included Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” Jimi Hendrix’ “All Along the Watchtower” and Planxty’s “The Well Below the Valley.”  The other song was this Dudley Moore/Peter Cook number from [...]

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Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind–Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Undergound [New Edition] (2003)

SOUNDTRACK: THERION-Theli (1997). I bought this disc when I was living in Boston and I immediately fell for it.  I seem to recall I was doing a lot of driving at the time, and this mix of extreme metal, orchestral accompaniment and twinned vocals was very captivating.  It was also really fun to play very [...]

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Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job Chrimbus Special (2010)

Happy Chrimbus everybody! I wondered long and hard if I should have a special Christmas post this year.  Last year I posted about my most favorite and least favorite Christmas songs.  And this year I thought about posting about my favorite Christmas special episodes, but we didn’t watch that many this year, so that may [...]

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Jonathan Franzen–”Emptying the Skies” (New Yorker, July 26, 2010)

SOUNDTRACK: TOKYO POLICE CLUB-”Bambi” (2010). I loved the first couple of Tokyo Police Club albums, but I missed this one when it came out.  My friend Al said it was one of his favorite albums of the year and that this song was one of his favorite songs. I was disconcerted when I started listening [...]

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Roberto Bolaño–The Savage Detectives (1998/trans 2007)

SOUNDTRACK: TIJUANA NO!-Transgresores de la Ley (1994). In the mid 90s, when I was living in Boston, I discovered MTV Latino, and the Rock en Español resurgence.  Since I’m always interested in new music, I bought a few CDs by these Spanish-singing bands.  For most of my life I’ve thought about the rabid Japanese audiences [...]

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Pseudonymous Bosch–This Isn’t What It Looks Like (2010)

SOUNDTRACK: SPOON-Transference (2010). The first thing I think of when I think of this disc is staccato.  I’ve read that the disc sounds like a demo, which I don’t quite agree with, although it does sound very raw and spare (in the way the Peter, Bjorn and John’s Living Thing does). Although the opener “Before [...]

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