SOUNDTRACK: BEN FOLDS-Stems and Seeds (2009).
I enjoyed Way to Normal, although not as much as previous Ben Folds CDs. I was listening to Pandora Radio at work and I heard a version of one of the songs from Way to Normal, but it listed it as coming from Stems and Seeds, which I hadn’t heard of.
Stems and Seeds is a sort of fan club release of Way to Normal. That whole album is remixed, remastered and in a different track order. It also features B-sides and the “original leaked versions” (ie. not real versions at all) of several of these tracks.
The second disc (actually the first disc) is a collection of audio files that you can upload to the GarageBand program where you can manipulate the files yourself. I have not even popped the disc in the computer to look at this yet, and I don’t foresee myself doing it any time soon.
But onto the music.
The differences are not vast in the remixes and yet I like them better. Some excessive bits are lopped off (the “Japanese doctor” voice before “The Bitch Went Nuts” is thankfully gone) as well as a few bits that dragged out “Free Coffee”). I don’t think of myself as a massive audiophile, but in a side by side comparison the new songs (which are apparently uncompressed like radio-ready songs are) sound cleaner, brighter and just better. (Which again, is weird since Way to Normal was released just months before this. Why bother releasing that version at all, I have to wonder.)
There’s also something about the new track order that I like better. It just flows more smoothly somehow.
And the bonus tracks are also fun. There’s a live version of “You Don’t Know Me” from a pre-show at Conan. They practice it without the curse in the lyrics, but they all get a hearty curse-laden shout out at the end. The “leaked” tracks are also fascinating. Even though they are lyrically not quite up to snuff, they’re not that far removed from Ben’s sillier songs. But it’s the idea that he wrote these entire songs just to jam the leakers is fascinating to me. He wrote new melodies and recorded entirely new songs that aren’t real. And yet now he’s officially released them and they are real. Trippy.
So, if you haven’t yet, skip Way to Normal and get Stems and Seeds. If you already have Way to Normal and didn’t like it, try a track or two from this one, it may turn you around.
[READ: September 13, 2009] Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It
In his Infinite Summer post Colin Meloy plugged the new book that his sister had just written. I wasn’t aware of the book coming out so I was pretty excited to hear about it. I picked up a copy and finished it in like 2 days.
This is Meloy’s 2nd collection of short stories.
The characters in almost all of the stories are failures. Not losers, mind you, but failures. They have failed at jobs or love or with their family, and the storylines show them coping with the aftermath of their failures. And note that the failures are never because of inaction, they are because the characters are stuck between two impossible choices or literally insurmountable problems.
What makes the stories so interesting is the humanity that Meloy gives her characters. These are people who have had bad breaks or started with nothing, and yet they endevaor, often futilely to affect changes.
The first several stories are set in Missoula, Montana and its environs. I don’t know anything about Missoula, but it sounds pretty cold and rather barren. In “Travis, B” a young man working on a farm meets a woman downtown who he falls for only to learn that she lives 9 hours away and he’ll only see her twice a week. He does the only thing he can think of to do: follow her home. In “Lovely Rita” young men work construction for a facility that no one in the neighborhood wants built: a nuclear plant. But it’s the only job around. When Rita comes into their lives, one of them falls for her very hard, to the dismay of the rest of the workers. Drinking and construction are a tough combination, and what is Rita to do (and will her boyfriend’s best friend let her?) when the combination turns deadly?
Although the above stories feature men as protagonists, women obviously feature largely as well. In Meloy’s world, women (and even girls) are in constant sexual danger from the men around them. This may have been the one aspect that I found a little unbelievable in her stories (although, heck, I’m not a girl, so I can’t really say). In “Red from Green” a young girl on a camping trip with her father is put in danger by her father’s client. The mood of danger is set from the very start, and yet I still found the incident shocking. The story seems uncomfortably real, and yet it’s hard to know what to think of the father’s culpability. In “The Girlfriend” a man is investigating the rape and murder of his daughter, who was alone house sitting in Missoula. Even in “Nine,” the male-female relationships are fraught with possible violence.
But Meloy saves her harshest critiques for family members. As in the line from “Spy vs Spy”
She craved a family, not having enough of one to understand what a pain in the ass it was.
In this story, two brothers with vastly different viewpoints agree to a family reunion at ski resort where the younger brother, George, teaches. The older brother, Aaron, has a daughter whom he loves unconditionally. George also loves her unconditionally. But the tension between them comes out when they see each other and when Aaron sees how much his daughter loves George too. Little jealousies always between them. The daughter is never in danger (thankfully) yet their disagreements come to a head on top of a ski slope.
In, “O Tannebaum” probably my favorite story of the collection, a family trip to the woods to cut down a tree turns into bitter jealousy when two stranded strangers upset the family plans. I enjoyed this story so much I think because it was set in the 1970s, and so it brought a new point of view in the collection (and it features a CB radio!)
Infidelity also rears its head in “Two-Step” as Alice, who stole a man from another woman (who was three months pregnant) now wonders if that very man is cheating on her, too. As the story progresses, and she reveals her deepest fears to Naomi, the treachery gets even more intense. In “The Children,” Fielding’s plans for revealing his affair to his wife are thrown off course with the arrival of an old friend of the family…one who imagined that he would break off his marriage for her!
And there’s also a story of multiple failures, “Nine.” Failure in love and in work and even in seduction when a divorced woman falls for an Italian teacher. This story is told through the point of view of nine year old Valentine. She watches as “Carlo” and his son Jake insinuate themselves into her family. Jake and Valentine experiment with kissing while their parents are downstairs doing the same and more.
Two stories in the collection stand out location-wise. Augustín is set in a far off land of juntas and overgrown estates. Although ultimately this story also comes down to impossible love between two people who cannot be together. And “Liliana” is different, first because of the location: it’s set in the States, but Liliana is a world traveler with residencies in Spain and, shortly, Paris. What sets the story apart otherwise is that it opens with the main character’s dead grandmother standing in his doorway (after ringing the doorbell!). A story at once supernatural, turns into a fascinating look at family dynamics, inheritance and respect. And it’s easily the funniest story in the collection (even though it too is sad).
For yes, as you might expect with stories of failures, they’re not happy stories. But neither are they maudlin. As with any untenable situation, you do your best or you give up. And if these characters give up, there’s really no story.
As for the writing itself, Meloy has a wonderful gift for spare, direct writing. Her style suits the cold barren lands she describes. It is beautiful, yet efficient, as if wasting too much time could lead to frostbite. My only regret about the whole collection was that the eleven stories weren’t enough.
Another wonderful collection from an excellent writer.
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