The Spinto Band - Cool Cocoon

In 2008, I was in Ireland for the summer. It was the summer of Vampire Weekend. Vampire Weekend was everywhere. I was staying at a youth hostel in Dublin with a kitchen served breakfast and dinner. It was a deal. The kitchen had big bay windows, and I'd sit there and read or surf the web or think. Without fail, the cook would press play on Vampire Weekend whilst preparing the evening meal.

The Spinto Band is a less spazy Vampire Weekend. And this is not to say that I don't like Vampire Weekend. I own that debut album that played and played all summer long. The problem with that first Vampire Weekend album is that I can only listen to it once all the way through. One and done. It goes back on the shelf until I dig it out a couple of months later.

Cool Cocoon has been on repeat in my car the last week or so. The Spinto Band has been playing music together since the 90s and with about 10 albums under their belt, you can hear the polish on their latest record. Vocally, there's a lot going on. Nick Krill may be singing lead but the backing vocals deserve first billing along with him. The harmonies are light and melodic which brings me to my next comparison: The Spinto Band is a less reverby The Morning Benders.

I really enjoyed The Morning Benders Grain of Salt EP. Big Echo, on the other hand, was hit or miss from me. I'm in the minority on this one, but the overkill of reverb just made the melodies blurry and inarticulate (where Grain of Salt was 60s pop heaven). The Spinto Band takes that 60s pop sensibility (more from the Beach Boys than from The Beatles) and runs with it.

The stand out tracks for me on Cool Cocoon are "Shake It Off" (which smacks of Brian Wilson), "What I Love" (an excellent love song), and "Enemy" (which sees The Spinto Band veering off into power pop). The last two tracks on the album "Na Na Na" and "Breath Goes In" start to grate, especially the former. I skip both. I'd be happy if Cool Cocoon had been two tracks shorter, and I probably would have given it a higher rating.

The album is a solid followup to Shy Pursuit which was a solid album in its own right. The Spinto Band keeps churning out quality pop tunes that you can put on repeat.

iTunes tells me I give this album three stars.

 

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Fringe "Welcome to Westfield"

Though not as well known, I've always liked Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat. A bunch of character's abandon ship and board a lifeboat. Problem is, one of those character's is the saboteur who sunk the boat in the first place. Who do you trust?

In "Welcome to Westfield", Fringe ups the ante. What if you can't trust others (because they seem to be going crazy), and what if you might be going crazy too? That's the problem our fringers find themselves in. They are in a confined space like Lifeboat. (Some people call this an "ark movie/story".) Somehow the town of Westfield won't let Peter, Walter, and Olivia leave. They are perpetually stuck in this town. If they drive out of the town, they enter right back in. It's like the only place that exists is the town of Westfield. This gag has been used before. For something pretty similar, look no further than Groundhog Day. With a story that can't change location, character interaction wins the day.

Because Peter, Walter, and Olivia are the only characters that make it into the neverending town, unsurprisingly, we get a lot of how Peter has affected both Walter and Olivia since he magically appeared in their universe. Both Walter and Olivia seem to be turning into what Walter and Olivia were like in the old universe when Peter popped into their lives which begs the question, "Are they only different here because they had never met Peter?" It's kind of silly to think so. Because Peter never existed (until now), unlike in the previous universe, there has to be a lot that would have been different for the current Walter and Olivia. Fringe really isn't interested in dealing with that though. I've come to realize that a lot of the gibberish and pseudoscience is there just to continually change how the characters in Fringe interact with each other. As I said previously, it's a way to ask the question a million ways, "Is it nature or nurture?" In this episode, it's nurture. As I watch more and more Fringe, I see "We are the way we are because of the world we live in."

The question I'm asking right now is, "Do you we really want Peter to get back to his old universe?" I think it would be interesting to see him adapt to the new one. Will he accept that this Olivia is different but will change into a similar Olivia the longer she's around him? I don't know. At this point, I'll accept pretty much anything Fringe throws at me. Fringe is a "just go with it" TV show. Either you can accept that there's a bunch of holes in the logic and it's a little kitschy, or you can't.

In "Westfield", the two universes are overlapping. People are overlapping. That's why they're going crazy. Both minds from two universe dopplegangers are assimilating into one. It's not happening to everyone (like Olivia, Peter, and Walter) because their dopplegangers aren't in Westfield in the other universe. Which takes back up a paragraph. This Olivia is becoming more and more like Ourlivia. Yes, something devious is afoot thanks to Nina and Mr. Jones, but it's happening naturally too. You can see it in Walter. He's on a collision course with the previous Walter we know and love. As George might say, "Worlds are colliding! A George divided against itself cannot stand!"

*The more I write about Fringe, the more I realize it makes no sense unless you have actually watched Fringe.

 

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Tom Bombadil

I'm rereading The Lord of the Rings for the first time. I read it as a kid in middle school and loved it. Before that, I read The Hobbit in 5th grade. It's fair to say that The Hobbit was the first novel I wanted to read, and in a way, was the first mile in the road that led me to get a BA in English. So why haven't I gone back and read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings before now? Well, for one, I don't reread much. I think I reread Where the Red Fern Grows because I had it assigned two different years in school, but beyond that, I'm scratching my head to remember any other books I've read more than once. If I had to put my finger on it, it's because there's so many good books out there that I don't want to waste my time reading one of them twice (which is somewhat ironic if you've read the "About" section of this blog).

Several months ago, I decided to reread The Hobbit. Since the movies have been coming out the last several years, I've found myself wishing I could remember which parts are in the book but not in the movies and if anything is switched around and what not. I felt the same way about The Lord of the Rings movies too. When I bought The Hobbit for pennies on Kindle, I still wasn't sure it was going to be worth it. I was wrong. I think I'll be rereading a lot of books. Granted, this is a bit different because I'd forgotten a lot about the books. I'd forgotten that Tolkien's style in The Hobbit is drastically different than The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit is written as a children's book which, being a child at the time, was somewhat lost on me -- though it probably explains why I love it so.

One of the things that hit me while reading the The Hobbit through this time was the world which Tolkien creates. Oodles and oodles have been written on this. He created his own world. It jump started the renaissance of the fantasy novel. While the movies move so quickly that you hear a name or a reference to a time long gone, the novels are a go-at-your-own-pace affair. I would stop and look up names and places on Wikipedia, and nearly every one of them has a long history. Did you know that there were multiple races of elves? I didn't. What about that the dwarves came from Mount Gundabad? Nearly everything in Tolkien's universe that he created has a backstory and history.

Except for Tom Bombadil.

This has also been written about extensively. I just reread the section where Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are saved by Tom Bombadil twice, once from Old Man Willow and the second time from the Barrow-wights. Tom is a bit of an enigma because he doesn't show up anywhere else in Tolkien's history. There is no backstory on Tom, and for that matter, there is no epilogue for him in the Red Book of Westmarch.

I really, really, really like that we have no idea who Tom Bombadil is, and here's why: Tom is a force of good that is unknown. There's an unexplainable hope that happens when good triumphs over evil, and it's big, strong, joyful, unknowable, and inexplicable. Tom is, in a way, deus ex machina, a term that comes from Greek drama. In ancient drama, a character would get into a jam, and there would be no way out. Then, when all hope was lost, a machine, probably some type of rope and pulley system, would lower an actor playing a god onto the stage to save the day. Literally, deus ex machina means "god from (or 'out of') the machine." This is Tom Bombadil. He's dropped right into the middle of The Lord of the Rings for no other reason than to remind the reader that there is more out there than we know that is good and right and it is winning.

 

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Eric Peters

I'm opening the door to a house that I've never been to with an owner I don't know. There's a note on the door: "Eric Peters concert downstairs." I've always loved house concerts, and I hear that many musicians like them as well. There's less barrier between musician and audience. If you're lucky there's no need for microphone or PA.

I hadn't seen Eric Peters since probably '03 or '04 at a concert at UNC Charlotte. I think Cru or InterVarsity put it on. Back in the 90s I had had a couple of songs by Ridgely, Eric Peters college folk duo, that I had always appreciated, and attending that concert ten years ago on a whim had been worth it. This was the impetus to get me off the couch last night to meet up with a friend to see Peters again.

There were about 20 of us, arranged in two rows. A coffee table served as a barrier between Peters and his admirers. I would have liked that table to have been moved. Peters nervously doodled on his guitar as the assembly slowly quited to a low chatter. Into the first song we jumped.

Eric Peters has an endearing inferiority complex. He anecdotally introduces tunes in a stream of concious blur. He'll interupt himself to start over as he realizes there's a better way to say something or turn a phrase. He constantly stares at the floor or iches his neck nervously. It's the type of disarming charm of "I'm just this guy who happens to have a voice and guitar chops" that makes you want to be Peters friend for life. Several songs in, he starts to talk about his bouts with depression. "2009 was a really crappy year for me," he starts in. I think to myself This just got interesting. I struggle myself with depression and anxiety alternatingly. I appreciate an artist who turns that experience into song. Peters has a refreshing and honest take on it that never stews but doesn't shy away from "the dark night of the soul".

In "Voices", Peters confesses, "We choose to love the things that hate us most." He's talking about the voices in his head that tell him he's not worthy of being loved, and in the wrong hands, this could be offputting to someone who doesn't share the same headspace. Here, Peters broadens the appeal to any and every voice that tells us we're doomed to be alone. Peters isn't shy about his faith, but neither does he hide his doubts. I turned over the line "Faith feels like murder" several times. Just what he means is elusive but it rings true.

For about the first half of the show, Peters barely touched the strings of his guitar. It was there, but he was just barely coaxing out the sound. I prefer vocals to sit on top of instrumentation in a live mix, and Peters was doing this naturally. (He wasn't mic'd up.) For the second half of the show, there was a lot more audience participation. After one song, I piped up, "What's your favorite movie?" At a house show, you can ask these sorts of things. He seemed to appreciate the unexpected question and thought for a moment, "Probably Shawshank Redemption." A couple of people murmured, "That's a good one." Before long others were asking and prodding. He seemed to relish it. Come to find out Peters is a book collector, and one of his all-time favorites is Watership Down. You don't know until you ask. He mentioned Frederick Buechner as one of his favorite writers. By the time things were winding down, we were all singing along to his song "New Year". The only thing missing was the campfire.

 

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Fringe "Making Angels"

"Kirk out!" With one line, Fringe establishes in the first fourth of the show what type of episode this is going to be. It'll be a little geeky and a crowd pleaser.

Sure enough.

In lieu of a longer case for why I liked this episode a heck of a lot, here's a bullet list:

• Astrid being startled by her alternate.
• Peter taking over the crime scene and stealing Walter's thunder.
• Walter peeving at Fauxlivia only to have her say, "I really got to you didn't I?"
• In fact, pretty much all the Walter/Fauxlivia interaction including the red vine trade for mints.
• Walter getting autistic Astrid's name right.
• Autistic Astrid.
• More than one Astrid! I can't get enough.
• The talk between the two Astrid's on Walter being a father figure to Our Astrid.
• Autistic Astrid talking about her relationship with her father.
• Seeing Our Astrid's father with a apron on that says "Shitake Happens". Priceless. The hug was just icing on the cake.
• Autistic Astrid rationally talking to Walter about why he should love Peter. So heart warming.

The whole episode is basically fan service without the naughty bits. Thanks Fringe team. I appreciate an episode to love for no other reason than it gives us all those little asides and such that for most episodes tend to be periphary. Here, they're all front and center. This is the first episode of Fringe I'm seriously considering rewatching.

 

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