There There Kid gets promoted in an interview

Mayra Calvani, author of The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing, recently interviewed me as part of her Slippery Art of Book Reviewing series at Blogcritics.org.

The interview mainly focused on the ins and outs of what makes a good book review, but I did get a chance to plug There There Kid along the way:

You also keep a blog, There There Kid. Tell us about it.

There There Kid is a new experiment of mine that I've enjoyed putting together over the past few months. I call it a "weblog of mixed media plus cultural criticism with a literary bent" because I believe that book reviewing (and art in general) doesn't happen within a bubble - it is one way in which we try to connect the seemingly random and absurd aspects of human nature into some form of coherence. There There Kid's essays try to find connections between works of art, such as a book and a CD, that have similarities in theme. It's basically a blog that takes the cultural studies approach to literary criticism and doesn't try to partition art into different categories, which is how I've always approached my own book reviewing.

And, in reference to my work as an editor at Blogcritics:

For our Books section, we are interested in reviewers who write more than just bland plot summary or tip-of-the-iceberg analysis. The best reviews are the ones that dig deep and take on new approaches, and even though every review should give the reader a sense of what the book is like, it should also reveal new and profound insights into how the book influenced the reviewer. In my opinion, most people who read book reviews want to know more than just what happens in the book; they want to know how it all connects personally and culturally.

The same is true for what we expect at There There Kid. We are not out to promote anything in our reviews, but we do want to review the stuff that interests us.

If you're reading this blog for the first time, perhaps you'd like to join us. I've always said that this community cannot thrive without participation, and we are finally starting to see some semblance of participation here on the site.

If you want to write for There There Kid, read our submission guidelines. We're particularly interested in writers who want to write shorter reviews, as described in the submission guidelines section.

Review: Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV (physical disc release)

by Kevin Eagan

I have to be honest, it came as a big shock to me when I first read that Nine Inch Nails would be leaving Interscope records, opting instead to release their albums independently. Don't get me wrong, Nine Inch Nails has always been a band willing to try new things and branch out into new experiments, but they never struck me as the type of band that would leave behind the marketing machine.

Trent Reznor's creative energy has defined the so-called industrial sounds of 1990s metal. At the same time, his marketing genius (yes, it still exists in music today) created a brand that goes beyond the music. From NIN's popular symbol to the concept of halo (a system that numbers each NIN album that's before its time, the halo series of computer games seeming oddly reminiscent), Reznor's marketing abilities and the label that supported it was a rare breed.

However, Reznor's frustration with his label had nothing to do with the past or his wild success throughout the '90s, it had to do with his rejection of a broken system, a cause many musicians have taken up with the same fury Reznor has displayed. 2007 was the year that many artists sought independence, leaving the major labels wallowing in their own incompetence. Music historians will look back at Reznor's decision as part of a major turning point in the record industry, seen as a time when musicians were taking control and the indie market thrived like never before as a result.

So I won't go over it again or continue the comparisons between Reznor's decision and Radiohead's or any other bands or musicians. The fact is that Nine Inch Nails - the brand, the artistry, and the artist himself - is now free to do whatever it wants in more ways than it ever has nearly twenty years after it broke through with 1989's wildly successful and artistically revolutionary Pretty Hate Machine. Reznor does so with his most ambitious project yet, Ghosts I-IV, an experiment in instrumentation and soundscape that isn't weighed down by political messages or philosophical debates, but is instead out there for the listener to do with it what he or she pleases.

Revolving around four movements, Ghosts I-IV takes all of the electronic noise of 1999's The Fragile and 2007's Year Zero and throws it all together in a random mix; Reznor swears there's no overall theme to Ghosts, but there is plenty of musical beauty that replicates the arid deserts and the fluid oceans in one long breath.

Within Reznor's lengthy and expansive soundscape are some moments of pure bliss, the moments where listeners of NPR's World Cafe can hold hands in unity with the tattooed punks that once defined Reznor's marketability. Ghosts begins with a sublime piano played so quietly that you can hear Reznor's feet shift on the open pedals, and even though the riff he plays sounds oddly familiar, it's haunting enough that it brings you in and keeps you hooked. Electronic choirs hum around the piano as Reznor reveals what haunts him at night, and we're left feeling the presence of something not of this world.

From there, Ghosts starts to sound a bit too familiar, and by the end of its first movement it feels more like the leftover instrumental samples from 2007's Year Zero. Reznor ends this movement with the distorted guitars of his past, excoriating the "ghosts" of his heyday to come back down into the piano and electronic noise of beauty that has solidified his standing as a mature and welcoming musician.

However, by the third and fourth movements of Ghosts, Reznor has you convinced that something has changed, that artistic experimentation is possible without the controlling force of a major label. At the same time, Ghosts doesn't forget the structures and sounds that made NIN what it is today, and Reznor's experiment won't alienate the majority of his fans. If anything, he's brought in new fans, since many listeners now see Nine Inch Nails as an important part of rock music's changing face instead of a flash in the pan.

By the second disc (movements III and IV), the remaining tropes and figures that have defined this record come to the forefront, and even with the masking of industrial noise, a positivity takes over the music. It's as if the listener has finally made it over the arid wasteland to discover an oasis of life, and Reznor is ready to give them something in return. As movement III transitions into IV, the band takes on a fully fledged distortion of sound with beautiful melody, and as IV begins, everything seems to come together and it's no longer about pitting disparate noises against each other, it's about finding some type of coherence in the soundscape, some type of beauty that transcends the sound itself.

Through a completely instrumental experiment, Ghosts I-IV has fully solidified Reznor's standing as a musical pioneer of our time. Even as he sometimes falls into his own bubble of marketing, Reznor has shown that it's all about the music and less about the fans' tastes. Those who have wanted something new from this band should take note: Ghosts I-IV signals that Nine Inch Nails is not interested in the hype, but rather the substance of independent music, and it's willing to yell "fuck you" to the establishment - not because it sounds cool, but because it's necessary. With that, I hope Ghosts I-IV continues the expansive creativity Nine Inch Nails has pioneered over the years, and I look forward to hearing whatever they provide in the future.

Mix Bag #3: Real Change in the Air, Ghosts Among Pyramids, and a Fictional Rock Bio

Mix Bag is a regular feature that brings together a random collection of media and highlights why it all matters to you.

I can't begin this week's Mix Bag without mentioning a very important and historic moment in American history: the Democratic party electing the first African-American presidential candidate. It's not only significant because of its symbolism -- after all, we've struggled for generations in America to transcend racial boundaries -- but it's also significant because of the candidate itself. When Barack Obama started his campaign, most people said he didn't have a chance. Party insiders favored Hillary Clinton, and the other candidates could never break through to the American peoples hearts (or wallets). While Clinton's campaign operated as the presumptive front runner and controlled the candidate in a robotic, corporate PR bubble, Obama gained the trust of voters in Iowa, and from there, Clinton was in trouble. Knowing that Obama was the popular candidate, the Clinton people scrambled to put together ways to discredit him, often in very negative and divisive ways.

By the time Obama wrapped up the nomination, the damage had been done among many of Clinton's core demographics, especially white women, who have been so adamantly opposed to Obama because of perceived misogyny and his lack of connection with working class people. Of course, the Clinton camp was all too eager to play up these perceived biases, and it helped divide the party up among differing demographics.

But among young Americans, Barack Obama was their candidate. Obama had difficulties winning among older whites, especially blue collar workers and those over 40. However, the enthusiasm among young Americans suggests that we are finally emerging from the past battles over civil rights into a post-racial America, an America that can't remember a time when race actually mattered but instead judge a person by their character, not the color of their skin. I will not for a minute sit here and naively pretend that America no longer suffers from racism; indeed, the racial wounds are still fresh, but for many Americans who grew up in an integrated society, race is not the determining factor. Barack Obama is the candidate who is prepared to bring America out of its racist past and into a new century that respects people for who they choose to be, not what they look like.

This is especially important for how America is perceived around the world, and thanks to the Bush administration, we are perceived as aggressors who have no decency or respect for the true rule of law and wage unnecessary wars under the guise of freedom. Barack Obama represents an America that is open and forthright, and an America that is inclusive and respectful, not brash and arrogant. I often read The Huffington Post for my political information, and for a perspective on how the world perceives an Obama administration, read this article, which suggests the world is ready for real change.

Also, Clinton's run for the White House was one full of many missteps and outright hypocrisy (i.e. Michigan and Florida), and to be honest, Bill owes her big time. Much has been said about her poorly managed campaign and mounting debt, and CNN currently has an article up explaining what Clinton should do next.

At this point, I'm willing to throw in my support for Barack Obama, because I see him as our only hope to reinvigorate America's standing in the world. On the other hand, McCain represents more of the same and plans to keep our disrespectful policies intact. Culturally, Obama represents the future of America; young Americans are energized and ready for a civilized discourse about our future.

With all of that politics behind us, let's look at what's going on in music and literature right now. I'm not really sure where to begin, considering we've missed out on a lot since our last Mix Bag (yeah, sorry about that). However, there's plenty going on right now, especially in the world of music. Taking on the cacophony of sound and turning it into art, the Pyramids' latest self-titled album has given me a new perspective on how beautiful sound can be found underneath lots of loud noises. The album takes a lot of the traditions of death metal and combines it with the electronic experimentation that's revived the modern indie underground. They even take on the presidential election in their chaotic song "Hillary."

Equally, Nine Inch Nails has come off their wildly successful break from Interscope Records with Ghosts I-IV, an excellent denouement from the fairly standard NIN styles of Year Zero. Ever since Reznor branched out on The Fragile, he's consistently shown that he's more than another bonehead Marilyn Manson-esque industrial rocker, and Ghosts I-IV is the perfect example of this. At times, the album seems pastoral and reflective, and at other times, anarchic and unpredictable. It's definitely worth purchasing or downloading, and we'll have a review of it up here soon.

In the literary world, I'm currently enjoying Andrew Foster Altschul's Lady Lazarus. Following in the footsteps of many 20th Century authors, Altschul has crafted an ironic account of a fictional rock star's daughter/poet Calliope Bird Morath, and makes use of all sorts of pieces of pop culture and literary history to keep it all together. It's an excellent novel, one that is both a convincing satire of rock biographies and a heartfelt story; you feel connected to the characters in a similar way to how fans get connected to their rock idols.

Well, that's it for now. Of course, we can continue this conversation in the comments section if you're interested...

Review: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk

by Matthew Ryan


Naughty words have an unmistakable demoralizing toll on an uptight culture. But shocking a (comparatively) puritanical society sometimes has another point, such as George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” monologue in 1972. He was trying to say that an irrational fear of naughty words gets in the way of healthy human discourse. To illustrate the point, he used a lot of naughty words. Not everyone got the joke. That monologue was broadcasted over airwaves and lead to a landmark obscenity law case. As a result, the FCC has more control in regulating the messages that come to us over the air.

Chuck Palahniuk’s message also has a way of being taken the wrong way. Consider the (now) wildly popular film adaptation of his book Fight Club. The core of the movie has a character coming to grips with personal responsibility and had suggestive gay imagery. Much of these meaning was lost on young males who only responded to the brawling and angst. The number of Fight Club posters in fraternity houses and the videogame featuring Fred Durst is proof of the misunderstanding.

Palahniuk’s most recent twisted journey, Snuff, could be misunderstood only if there was some substance behind the naughty words to misunderstand. This novel concerns the fate of porn diva Cassie Wright as she embarks on what is to be her final, historic adult odyssey: World Whore Three. It’s a knock-down, drag-out kind of hardcore production, with a gangbang cast of 600 from all walks of life, including a baseball team straight from the Special Olympics. She doesn’t intend to make it out alive, opting instead to use the royalty and insurance money as a final charitable contribution to her unplanned child, conceived in World Whore One, whose identity is unknown at the outset.

But Cassie, who would have made the most interesting character of all, is behind the scenes for the most part. Our vantage point is limited to dudes 72, 137 and 600; a Wright-obsessed high schooler, a desperate and once-famous TV actor and an experienced “woodsman,” respectively. There’s also the ringleader, Sheila, an angsty sort of feminist with an endless supply colloquialisms for male porn actors. While various incarnations of pud-pullers, yogurt-squirters, shank-shuckers and the like might count as edgy for the MTV demographic, it gets old for anyone with sophistication.

As for the dudes, each fit conveniently into classic porn stereotypes, and all seem to suffer from a bad case of snarkyness and a deficiency of real conflict. Dude 72 is youth whose sex drive is subverted by conservative mother who hypocritically indulges her own appetite via erotic cake-making. Dude 137 is trying to revive his career through the historic gangbang and grapples fears that his past performance in gay porn just was an act of retribution for his Oklahoma upbringing. Dude 600 hasn’t cared since his first love left him. These roles haven’t been cutting-edge for a long time.

The plot is stringy and unremarkable. Events move forward slowly, as most of the time is spent bogged down in the history of each pud-puller. Once the story gains critical momentum, the book has just about reached its overblown finale. The only points Palahniuk earns in plot are some decent twists, which are not as exciting as his previous works but keep the reader invested for a little while longer.

Another hallmark of Palahniuk’s work is an abundance of trivial knowledge, and this book does not break from tradition. There’s mention of the Roman Empress Messalina, who moonlighted as a prostitute and a won an epic sex competition against another famous prostitute of the time. There’s also talk of Marilyn Monroe’s double-life as the intellectual Zelda Zonk, and the harmful effects of Kegel exercise balls filled with mercury. These factoids typically unfold as bite sized stories in themselves, and are mostly allegories for the novel’s subtext. Palahniuk studied journalism in college and its shows in his compulsion to use these elements as much as possible, but the effectiveness of each element is based on how relevant it is to the story.

This time around, most tidbits miss the mark. Sheila has an uncommon medical vocabulary and uses it with reckless abandon. Number 137 is a veritable cornucopia of Hollywood trivia, and Number 600 is the same when it comes to the porn industry. These characters are walking, talking encyclopedia Erotica, but it does little more than give the scene some colorful jargon to match the drapes. At its worst, it comes off as pretentious and distracting.

The sum of Snuff’s parts is an attempt to assess the state of the sexual revolution from several points of view. From Sheila’s perspective, there’s the renewed feminist effort to portray women as studs, conquering male after male to establish as sort of balance of power. From 72’s vantage point, there’s a rebellion against hypocritical sexual repression. We get some gay perspective courtesy of 137, and a nihilistic impression of love from 600. But there’s nothing that goes beyond the most superficial critique of American sexuality, and it all gets diluted with large swaths of naughty words. After the last milk monkey standing, this book delivers as advertised: snuff.

Review: The Dumbest Generation - How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future by Mark Bauerlein

by Kevin Eagan

It is an inevitability that with every generational change, the older generation will complain about the new generation and reminisce on the past - the "good ol' days," if you will. It's not a surprise when the new fashions and trends of youth culture get misunderstood by the adults who say they know better, and as those fashions and trends become the accepted norms, those youth turn into the wise adults, criticize their children's youthful ways, and continue the vicious cycle into the next generation.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, for many reasons. When cultural norms change, art, literature, and other creative outlets become more fluid, and people respond to the spirit of the age with an intelligent and relevant civic discourse. Only the old school traditionalists - those curmudgeons who see change as the end of the world as we know it - lambast and discourage this healthy pattern, a pattern that has made our great democracy run efficiently enough throughout the 20th Century.

That's why Mark Bauerlein tries to distinguish himself from these old fogey stereotypes early in his book The Dumbest Generation, and states that his book is not an attempt to insult or undermine the youth of today, but to show "with empirical evidence" that those in Generation Y (or The Millennials, Generation Next, DotNetters, what have you) are truly stupid.

Despite being surrounded with more information than ever before, the generation that grew up on the Internet has become intellectually lazy, and that's not just one man's opinion, it's supported by statistical fact, Bauerlein says. He won't look at their attitudes, behaviors, or values, he states in his introduction, just their capacities for intelligence. And then he spends the rest of his book looking at their attitudes, behaviors, and values (in between his hefty doses of statistics and data), judging them unsound and lamenting the end of intellectualism in America.

It's not the fairest assessment, especially since his metrics of evaluation don't fit with his original premise. After all, can you really measure the intelligence of an entire generation based on samples of surveys and testing data without looking at their changing attitudes? Bauerlein's opinion seems to be that the statistics reveal a surprising move toward stupidity, and that this stupidity manifests itself in Generation Y's anti-intellectual attitudes.

Within Bauerlein's collected research, several disturbing trends among young people do emerge. The fact-based, multiple-choice approach to education has hampered our ability to "think historically," meaning young Americans have difficulties placing current events in relation to their historical contexts. Only 22 percent of those involved in one survey could identify key phrases from the Gettysburg Address. Yet in the same survey, 99 percent could identify Beavis and Butt-Head.

Equally, our ability to do basic math and our reading proficiency continues to drop. In a 2005 survey cited in the book, respondents aged 15-to-24 only read anything for eight minutes on a weekday and nine minutes on the weekend, while clocking hours and hours watching TV or surfing the Internet. These are just a few shockers that Bauerlein reveals, but not all of his statistical evidence points toward depressing trends.

At the same time, technology is making our IQ's go up, and Bauerlein reveals how IQ tests have become more complex to meet our growing intelligence. In theory, having higher IQ's would go against Bauerlein's original assertion that we are all getting dumber, but Bauerlein quickly dismisses this idea, saying that today's youth aren't reading enough and aren't interested in the arts in the ways previous generations were.

Despite contradictory evidence in other peer reviewed articles - after all, an author's evidence is only what he or she is willing to offer the reader - that shows young Americans are more involved in civil discourse than ever before, Bauerlein sticks to his assertion that intelligence will continue to drop until it eventually threatens democracy as we know it. Of course, Bauerlein ignores the fact that the generation before was just as disinterested in high art (and the traditionalists blamed MTV), and the generation before them also seemed more interested in teen escapism than classical music or Victorian literature (and the traditionalists blamed rock and roll).

Is this really all that shocking? Not really. Bauerlein seems to think things are different because the Internet has only given teens one more way to escape adult life. And to a certain extent, he's right; the Internet is not used by teens to further their intellectual pursuits, at least, not in the way educators would like. But as with all new technologies, the Internet is currently going through a teething stage, and it's too early to say if our new digital lives will mean the next generation will forever ignore civil discourse and become apathetic toward art and history as adults.

Although the digital age has created one of the largest generational rifts in modern history, it is not the only time America has gone through major cultural changes as a result of youth rebellion. As postwar American youths tried to make sense of a difficult time in American history, Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel On The Road became a bestselling novel and rock and roll replaced jazz as the rebellious music of the day. Changes in American culture spiraled out of control in the 1960s, and as this young generation was shipped off to Vietnam after enduring the Cold War fears of nuclear war, a resentment toward authority grew. Despite what the powers-that-be said at the time, this age of American uncertainty created a new surge of art and cultural veracity that not only brought about new labels (Postmodernism, Deconstructivism, et cetera) but a new wave of tolerance and accessibility that continues today.

Bauerlein, of course, doesn't have a problem with what happened during this period of American history; after all, Kerouac and the beats actually had something to say, unlike teens today, who aren't reading, and are therefore clearly not writing. Yet, Bauerlein fails to find out exactly what is going on among The Millennials in terms of art and literature, and just like the beats and the pop art afficionados of the '60s, art is flourishing among the fringes of our young generation. With independent artists and musicians trying new things on the internet to poets exploiting their spam folders for artistic inspiration, a thriving art community has used the Internet to push new boundaries. If Bauerlein had merely interviewed a couple of his English students (he is a professor at Emory University) or spoken with some art students, he would realize that there is some hope for the future, and that some Gen-Y'ers are bucking the trends.

Although some of the statistics cited by Bauerlein point to disturbing changes in how Millennials process information, he seems to overlook many of the positive changes - and the potential for a new approach to civil discourse - that will inevitably occur as the youth of today come of age. The Dumbest Generation is certainly a necessary part of this new discourse (after all, we do want to improve), but it drowns in its heavy reliance on statistics that range from mildly convincing to flat out contradictory.

Bauerlein's approach reveals a one-sided argument, one that forgets that art is created on the fringes of society and that young people rarely get involved in these pursuits since, after all, they're too busy trying to impress their friends. The Dumbest Generation is a great book for those who already agree with Bauerlein's main thesis, but won't change the opinions of those who disagree and see a lot of potential in young people today.

Originally posted on Blogcritics.org.

Review: Radiohead concert in St. Louis (5.14.08)

by Matthew Ryan




Before it even got off the ground, it was obvious that the show was to be taken seriously. On the left side of the stage were rows of banks of crates, arranged in store-esque aisles. One of these crates bore the spray-stenciled name: RADIOHEAD. An arsenal of 20-ish guitars lined one of the aisles, ready for battle. Wires stuck out of metal crates like a network of nerves from a DaVinci anatomical sketch. From a light platform suspended above the crowd, rope ladders came down. Three stagehands climbed to the top of the platform and sat in customized seats, manning lights, pointing cameras, setting the trajectory of laser beams and whatever alien technology Radiohead was about to throw at the crowd. Yes, they meant business.

When it came time, the musicians, sans Yorke, came on and took positions in short order. The crowd -- a mix of pimply high schoolers, highbrow college nerds, polo shirt-clad frat boys, girls in towering high heels and dangling dresses, folks with mortgages and kids -- examples of every kind of live, breathing people -- started hollering in a way that couldn’t be one-upped, until Yorke finally came on stage, then it reached a new kind of loud.

Yorke came on, a bit like a nobody and a bit like an alien. He wandered back and forth at first, hands in pockets, occasionally looking at the ground, perhaps waiting for a train at a station. Or maybe he was waiting for the mother ship. He looked a bit tickled as he examined his St. Louis audience, as any average human being looks at another human being doing something odd, or maybe it was the look that an extraterrestrial observer gives when examining the human race.

This was all very strange, yes, but strange for both parties. The crowds didn’t seem to make sense of it either. Here was the band they’ve rocked-out to, toked up to, screwed and had babies to, a band built into a Beowulf-like mythological construct (Did you hear these guys didn’t even charge for the last album? No way! I heard he’s got an actual radio stuck in his head that receives all sorts of interstellar frequencies? Whoa, freaky!). Considering the hype, perhaps it was a band that wasn’t supposed to exist at all. Yet Yorke cometh, and was putzing around on a stage before all. On top of that, you could see his maligned eye from a camera feed as it shone on a display in the back of the stage. And this bassist fellow had an oddly-shaped nose and an eye that looked punched-in. And then there was Jonny Greenwood, with his bony face. What was going on? The crowd went with the flow. Beeps and boops trickled in the background and the evening began with “All I Need.”

Yorke talked after the second song, “Jigsaw Falling Into Place,” something about smelling donuts??? And how anybody could eat donuts at a time like this??? And now donut sales would dive??? He was talking about the smell of Elephant Ears stands, but it was barely intelligible through his British accent.

In quick succession, Radiohead played song after song from the catalog (but conspicuously nothing from Pablo Honey and only one from The Bends), not wasting any time in-between. Light effects came into full bloom, with LED tubes that hung from the rafters like neon streamers. One song they’d twinkle like ice crystals, flash like lightning and flow like rain, and the next they’d glow purple and otherworldly. Green washed down the length of the tubes like goo flowing from the sky, all very high-end and hypnotic. This was the backdrop that Yorke spazzed out to, head jerking, mouth moaning, arms and hands snaking along like he was embracing a first-time acid trip. The crowd fell in line and clapped to his beat.


Tricks were en masse. For “You and Whose Army,” Yorke made use of a piano rigged with a camera, which made for an extreme close-up blasted on the massive screen at the back of the stage. In Crayola green, the audience witnessed Yorke get closer and closer to the camera, until a massive Yorke eye took up the entire screen. Backing off the camera, his face then became distorted in the screen with a fish-eye effect, before being multiplied over and over.

For “There, There,” he ran around on stage with drumsticks as the crew plopped a small drum set in front of the mike. After sitting down, Yorke said “I wonder what this thing does.”

In his second and final address to the crowd, Yorke told of a song from Amnesiac that was “lost sight of.”

“It seems very pertinent now,” he said, the “P” popping through the sound system, and played “Optimistic.”

A little over an hour of songs rapid-fire and the band rushed off. But the house lights stayed off and stagehands still ran around, preparing for who knows what. It didn’t fool any of the crowd, not for a second, so some went ahead and shouted encouragements while others sat and waited for the inevitable encore, which came in about two minutes. As the band came back, they waved and clapped. Colin Greenwood smiled big, and Yorke looked at the ground and scratched his head. They knew we knew it was all for show. There may have even been a bit of an ashamed blush on Yorke’s cheeks. He thanked the crowd and took up an acoustic, at which point the amphitheater became quiet and attentive, and “Exit Music” flowed through the PA. Little flames began cropping up in the crowd up front, people flicked on lighters. From under the stage covering, the stars couldn’t be seen, but when people in the lawn seats held up lighters, it created an eerie similarity.

When the five-song encore came to an end, Radiohead left as quickly as they did after the first set, but stagehands were still messing around with equipment, so the shenanigans were busted again. It was apparent to the audience that a second encore was inevitable, so with further encouragement, the band came out for another round. Three songs resulted (the double-encore was repeated at other concerts on the same tour), and in one last splurge of energy, going out supernova-style, the band hit the crowd with a green and purple light-strobing, video screen pixilating, uber freakout to “Paranoid Android.”

After that, it was done. Honest.




Setlist:

FIRST SET
------------
All I Need - (In Rainbows)
Jigsaw Falling Into Place - (In Rainbows)
Airbag - (Ok Computer)
15 Step - (In Rainbows)
Nude - (In Rainbows)
Kid A - (Kid A)
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi - (In Rainbows)
The Gloaming - (Hail to the Thief)
You and Whose Army? - (Amnesiac)
Idioteque - (Kid A)
Faust Arp - (In Rainbows)
Videotape - (In Rainbows)
Everything in Its Right Place - (Kid A)
Reckoner - (In Rainbows)
Optimistic - (Kid A)
Bangers + Mash - (In Rainbows)
Bodysnatchers - (In Rainbows)

FIRST ENCORE
-------
Exit Music (for a film) - (OK Computer)
Myxomatosis - (Hail to the Thief)
My Iron Lung - (The Bends)
There There - (Hail to the Thief)
Fake Plastic Trees - (The Bends)

SECOND ENCORE
-------
Pyramid Song - (Amnesiac)
House of Cards - (In Rainbows)
Paranoid Android - (OK Computer)

Review: Shy Child - Noise Won't Stop

by Kevin Eagan

The indie underground has always thrived upon borrowing from the past to create something new, discovering new styles that can't be easily defined and have not yet been exploited by the mainstream. In music, as well as in art, indie artists try to reject modern approaches by tearing apart the sounds and actions that make up the current pop culture.

It's an approach that is not new by any means. In fact, it's an approach that sparked the high modernism of early 20th-century art when Ezra Pound so famously urged artists to "make it new," sparking a revolution of new approaches that may seem tame now, but caused riots at the time (see Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring for an example of the power of the new).

Modern indie musicians continue to revolutionize sound, and even as they become a part of the mainstream, many of them continue to try new things. Beck's 2005 EP GameBoy Variations is a great example. By re-mixing some of his most recent hits using a Nintendo Game Boy, Beck connected his music to the sounds of an emerging generation while taking a completely new approach to his songs.

It's with this concept of modern indie music that I approached Shy Child's latest LP Noise Won't Stop, an album that takes the electronic noises of the modern world (cell phone beeps, game consoles, MacBooks, whatever) and mixes it all into some beautifully composed songs. At the same time, Shy Child borrows heavily from 1980s pop and modern dance music to create something oddly familiar, yet far out in space.

Noise Won't Stop begins with "Drop The Phone," a song chocked full of beeps, buzzes, and dial tones. Using synth noises on top of a driving drum beat, singer Pete Cafarella adds in situational lyrics to accentuate the cell phone theme: "Then I just lost the signal / the signal's gone." It's a powerful start, but there are better moments on this album.

The album continues with "Pressure to Come," a song more in tune with modern dance and electronica than anything from the past. Drummer Nate Smith adds some complex drumming on top of sirens and Cafarella's keytar riffs. On "The Volume," the electronica takes on a more vintage tone, and Smith uses a drum machine to keep with the '80s mood. While "The Volume" has a straightforward sound, the syncopation is complicated, and Cafarella's vocals summarize the band's lifestyle: "The volume's turned up too loud, but we don't cover our ears / Because they're already numb, from damage already done." Indeed, Noise Won't Stop is an album designed to be enjoyed at high volume.

Noise Won't Stop takes a turn with "Generation Y," a song that nods to the generation that will make or break the band. Cafarella makes generational distinctions that suggest the changes ahead, and since "change" has been the buzzword of the year, it seems to be something Shy Child embrace as well; while the band declares "We got it, we got it," Cafarella sings "Generation Y can't get things off their mind / Generation X can't get things off their chest." And in "Murder Capital," Cafarella waxes political, singing "Everybody is looking over themselves...Selling things to get the means to get what they want," a telling sign that Shy Child's music has more depth than the music alone can suggest.

Yet the music on Noise Won't Stop is still highly successful, and it's packed full of beautifully synthesized orchestration. On title track "Noise Won't Stop," the band creates a beautiful new anthem for us Pitchfork readin' Millennials, and on "Summer," the band bangs out some beautiful poetry that contrasts a carefree lifestyle with a Lennon-esque "war is over": "Just in time for summer / And the war is over and the fighting overseas / Teenage sex and yoga, marijuana, I can hardly breathe / Underground communities are overflowing with possibilities."

Without a doubt, Shy Child are a band that's attuned to the here and now, and express the hope for the future that so many feel is just around the corner. At the same time, Shy Child operate on the cusp of the indie underground, creating some new and experimental sounds while borrowing heavily from the past. At a time when the indie underground is truly thriving, Shy Child certainly aren't cramping anyone's style, and Noise Won't Stop is a great example of what can be done when artists choose to "make it new."

Originally Posted on Blogcritics.org

Review: I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

by Kevin Eagan

Growing up in middle class suburbia has become the height of American comfort, but it's also true that it breeds a certain level of eccentricity - at least, for those who came of age in all of its pre-packaged glory. Blame it on the lack of originality; the strip malls, the four-lane divided highways, and the big box retailers all start to look the same after a while, and those seeking a thrill end up in the city trying to make it in a completely different world.

While David Sedaris' bestselling essays have shown that coming of age in suburbia can be an absurd experience, he's not the only writer who portrays the urban-suburban divide in a hilarious way. As America has moved out of the urban centers and created a new level of urban sprawl, it could be said that the suburban life is about as American as you can get.

Count Sloane Crosley as one more essayist who has endured a childhood in the suburbs, and has a hilarious (albeit slightly eccentric) way of looking at her upbringing. For Crosley, childhood was about working at the mall, surviving the rigors of an all-girls summer camp, and getting a high score on the computer game Oregon Trail.

I Was Told There'd Be Cake is Crosley's first collection of essays, and nothing is held back. Throughout the 15 essays, Crosley takes us on a trip through some of her most hilarious and heartfelt experiences, both as a successful urban woman in New York City and as a self-conscious girl growing up in Westchester, NY ("I came to understand that being born and raised in suburbia makes it difficult to lay claim to a specific type of childhood," Crosley writes).

Crosley's clever way of looking at life and her unique use of language makes I Was Told There'd Be Cake a fun read, and each essay will have you laughing at the odd and bizarre situations Crosley gets herself into. In the first essay, "The Pony Problem," Crosley's attempts at finding uniqueness (by making jokes about ponies) gets interpreted by everyone around her that she really likes ponies, and before you know it, she has a drawerful of plastic ponies that she just can't bring herself to throw away, even though she thinks they are "insanely creepy."

"The Pony Problem" is just one example of how Crosley's dark humor creates an engaging and unique look at life. In "Bring-Your-Machete-To-Work Day," Crosley's inner child and "awkward" transition into teenager left her abusing her favorite computer game Oregon Trail by naming all of her characters after people she knew, and then watching them suffer: "Eventually a message would pop up in the middle of the screen, framed in a neat box: MRS. ROSS HAS DIED OF DYSENTERY. This filled me with glee."

In "You On A Stick," Crosley also re-visits her childhood through her "best" friend's wedding, and her sardonic inner monologue reveals the friendship as a complete fraud, but one that works well for the wedding cameras. Of course, Crosley lets us know the truth, that being maid of honor is a chore that's not worth the brouhaha: "'Horror is a six-letter word. So is 'fuck me.'"

Throughout the collection, language is used to great effect, and Crosley's clever word play portrays otherwise mundane events in an original way. In "Lay Like Broccoli," Crosley defends her vegetarian diet by "[keeping] a set of (vegetable) stock answers at my disposal for all queries about my diet," and in "Smell This," Crosley discovers an unpleasant object on her bathroom floor after a party, and tries to deduce who left the surprise: "Jesus, she's got shit on her floor."

I Was Told There'd Be Cake is an excellent start for a writer who has spent most of her career surrounded by books (she also works as a publicist for Vintage/Anchor books), and it certainly suggests that Crosley has more to come. The collection is both a wonderful read and an excellent critique of the suburban upbringing. Crosley's Web site also provides an interesting extension to the book, and adds a level of multimedia output that sets her writing ahead of many of her predecessors. Overall, I Was Told There'd Be Cake won't take long to read and will have you laughing the whole time.

Originally posted on Blogcritics.org

Review: You Don't Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem

by Kevin Eagan

Jonathan Lethem's fiction has never been the type to conform to genre restrictions. If anything, Lethem has become the master of exploiting the trappings and clichés of genre to great effect, and given his track record so far, he's not afraid to use these clichés as an artful indictment of our consumer society. Subsequently, Lethem also shows that literature and art thrive on mimicry, and that the best artists borrow from the past.

In his critically acclaimed novel Motherless Brooklyn, for example, the great tradition of the detective novel is thoroughly deconstructed through Lionel Essrog, a bumbling former orphan with Tourette's Syndrome. Equally, in The Fortress of Solitude, Lethem uses the mysticism of the comic book superhero to give his young protagonist Dylan Edbus some of his own super powers, and in the process revealing why comics have had such a profound effect on young Americans, especially those who struggle socially.

So it's not all that surprising that Lethem's most recent novel You Don't Love Me Yet exposes another literary phenomenon: the love story. At the same time, You Don't Love Me Yet is full of all of the pop culture references and obscurely artful situations that have made Lethem unique, and Lethem's love for music is put front and center in a way we haven't seen from him in a long time.

Recently released on paperback, You Don't Love Me Yet follows the impressionable Lucinda Hoekke, a bass player who plays in a band struggling to find their sound. After quitting her job at a coffee house and breaking up with her boyfriend Matthew (the band's guitarist), Lucinda takes a job at a faux call center set up by her artist friend Falmouth as part of an art experiment. While the band is struggling to find a unique sound amidst the glamor of Los Angeles, Lucinda beomes enamored by "the complainer," a man who dials the call center frequently and gives Lucinda a fresh batch of original material for her songwriting. The band goes through a musical renaissance, Lucinda meets and begins a romantic affair with Carl (the complainer), and the band finally gets exposed to the masses at their first gig.

Although there's much more to the story than that, You Don't Love Me Yet is less about the plot and more about the underlying message, and that underlying message isn't easily accessible. At the surface, Lethem has exposed how genre can shape our expectations, and just like he has done from the beginning of his writing career, he successfully uses those genre motifs to create a brilliant work of satire.

But this book is also about the meaning of ownership, an indictment of the corporate copyrighting of everything (and everyone) that's marketable. As the band's new songs (inspired by Lucinda and Carl's phone conversations) take shape and warrant interest among fans and promoters, Carl weasels his way into the band as the fifth member, a "fifth Beatle" in an already crowded band. From there, the band loses its artistic way, and Lucinda's love for Carl wavers. Carl's belief is that he essentially "made" the band because his catch phrases helped form their songs, but the truth is that the band's musical ownership was a collaborative effort. Of course, Lethem is targeting the very idea of corporate ownership, especially in a time where music and art are stymied by what is easily marketed and palatable to the masses.

While Carl may represent the old school thinking of corporate ownership, Lucinda and Matthew seem to represent the burgeoning underground, where art becomes a do-it-yourself experience that thrives on community interaction and trust. Just as people see through the insanity of copyright lawsuits and the infighting between artists and their record labels over artistic control, Matthew and Lucinda learn that a lucrative record deal and band promotion are for nothing. At the same time, artists like Falmouth and the band's songwriting guitarist Bedwin try and make sense of all of the absurdity. Through these three opposing viewpoints of the band, You Don't Love Me Yet effectively summarizes how Lethem views the world of art, literature, and pop culture.

You Don't Love Me Yet is an interesting story that works well as a social critique, but it's not flawless. At times, the plot itself becomes trite and difficult to follow; the dialogue throughout seems rushed and hollow, and the sex scenes between Lucinda and Carl are god awful. Although it seems that these bad clichés are part of the point, it's not done as effectively as some of Lethem's past fiction, blunting the effect and message he is after. At the same time, You Don't Love Me Yet speaks a truth about modern society, one that is often missed in the maze of clever marketing and confusing copyright laws.

Originally posted on Blogcritics.org

Review: Last Last Chance by Fiona Maazel

by Kevin Eagan

The idea of "making it" in the world, to come from nothing to something through hard work and persistence, is such a deeply held American principle that we don't give it a second thought. When a child declares he will grow up to be an astronaut or top-forty musician, we encourage it — hell, it might come true. When he does grow up and he's struggling to make manager at McDonald's, we still don't discourage his dreams when he spends his days crooning out of key at his favorite karaoke bar, or watching episodes of NOVA in hopes to learn something about his astronaut life goals.

Of course, our cultural aptitude towards making it big doesn't fit with reality. In fact, it's one of the reasons why we celebrate the small things in life, like the single mother who manages to feed her children and pay her bills on time, or the drug addict who manages to kick her addiction. These are honorable goals, but still reflect the many divisions we still have between rich and poor in America.

Fiona Maazel's debut novel Last Last Chance attempts to demystify these preconceived ideas of success through her main character Lucy Clark, a drug addict trying to kick her addiction and find love along the way. In the process, she points a lot of the hypocrisy and fear America faces in a post-9/11 world, and she throws in the apocalyptic threat of a superplague for good measure.

Last Last Chance follows the chaos and mystery of drug addiction and impending plague through the first-person narration of Lucy, who has so many things going on in her life at once, it becomes difficult to follow. Despite being in her early thirties, Lucy's had a hard time making her way through life; as the novel begins, she's been kicked out of her home and is searching for some sense of purpose while working and living at a kosher chicken-processing plant. As she returns to her home in New York to attend her best friend's wedding, things in her life spiral out of control: she misses her friend's wedding after getting the dates mixed up (but no matter, her friend married the only man Lucy ever loved), her mom is willingly trapped in a serious crack addiction, and her father, a former scientist for the U.S. government, has just committed suicide because vials of the plague were stolen from his lab, unleashing a superplague. It's a lot to take in, but Maazel's sense of humor, irony, and her engaging prose style make for a great read.

As Lucy falls back into old patterns in her childhood Manhattan home, apathy sets in. Although she tries to break her addictions, she watches her mother die slowly from crack addiction (a very wealthy one, at that). Lucy tries to seek help for her own drug problems from local 12-step programs, and eventually rehab. While all of this takes place, the strain of superplague is making its way across the country, striking fear and uncertainty in an America that is already full of fear and uncertainty.

The superplague seems like a minor part of the plot in comparison to Lucy's many personal problems, but Maazel uses it to make some profound observations of modern America. The idea of bio-terrorism doesn't seem all that ridiculous — at least, no more ridiculous than the threat of nuclear war felt when Kurt Vonnegut began writing his post-apocalyptic prose in the 1950s and '60s.

It's this threat — one that has remained in the back of people's minds since 2001 even if it still hasn't happened — that makes Maazel's story work, because Last Last Chance becomes more about real fear of death than the self-absorbed complaints of a drug addict. It's not just the threat or the panic felt throughout the novel, it's the apathy and selfishness that comes as a result of bio-terrorism. As the cable news programs hype up the threat of superplague, Lucy observes that "panic is understudied for something so destructive and ubiquitous...What of the people whose panic results in apathy? The mind scrambling for purchase. Indecision or madness. Flee to the suburbs or flee this life." Through Lucy's narration, Maazel suggests that fear of the unknown can breed panic, and this is an apt observation in a time where we fear terrorism.

At the same time, Maazel has weaved an excellent story about the dangers of addiction. It's not a cautionary tale, but it does show how drugs have ruined Lucy's life. Unlike her mother Isifrid, Lucy is willing to try to overcome her addictions, and does learn to manage them in the end. Yet, the damage of addiction is still felt; she has difficulties with real relationships, and even though she spends time in rehab and frequents her 12-step meetings, she still deals with anxiety and her own personal fears. Lucy also seeks out a spiritual life, and at the end of the novel she speaks to God but hears nothing in return. Even though she manages to overcome drugs, not everyone does, and her sense of "making it" is never fully restored.

Throughout Last Last Chance, Maazel isn't after happy endings. Instead, Last Last Chance is a book about recognizing fear and uncertainty, and showing that even in the lowest places of society, the American dream of rags to riches isn't always possible. Maazel's voice is bitingly satiric and hopelessly pathetic, the exact opposite of a novelist out to make the world a happy place. As a result, Last Last Chance is the right portrayal for a 21st Century America, an America trying to make sense of chaos and fear despite our growing apathy.

Originally posted on Blogritics.org.