Critical Angst

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PULLING THE WEEDS: THE ART OF RETELLING IN JEANNINE OUELLETE'S MEMOIR ‘THE PART THAT BURNS’

Reviewer Lisa Folkmire won Ann Arbor’s Current Magazine 2017 Poetry Contest with her poem “First Wolf.” She earned her MFA in Writing (poetry) from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poems have appeared in Alegrarse, Okay Donkey, The Mantle, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Barren Magazine, Occulum, and Glass: A Journal of Poetry, among others.

The Part That Burns By Jeannine Ouellette Split Lip Press

Sometimes a memoir encapsulates an author’s life so well that it seems to have its own pulse. The Part That Burns is no exception. Jeannine Ouellette tells her story through a series of fragments. What’s possibly most unique about the novel is that Ouellette structured the memoir so that the fragments fold in on themselves, almost as if Ouellette’s memoir is a conversation with different versions of herself through different parts of her life, checking and rechecking on what each experience meant in her life. 

In the titular fragment, “The Part That Burns,” Ouellette tells her young daughter about the people who live in the neighborhood of bungalows they walk past, complete with characters like the “woman who stays up late into the night when the moon is full because she hears the singing of her long-lost sister in the waves breaking against the shore” (83). 

It’s with this same lilting voice that Ouellette tells us of her own life stories, including the traumas, the separations, her growth into motherhood. She writes, “Apparently, some weeds are obvious, even to me. Mom was orphaned at seventeen. Chickens lived in her house. Mafia beat her in front of me. These are facts. I don’t know what they mean to me or to my cells”” (97). Her voice remains lyrical in both the romantic and the discomforting. 

The Part That Burns isn’t only a memoir, but also an homage to the learning and relearning, the declaring and undeclaring, and the stories that remain.

There’s a sort of push and pull between writing through the traumas that littered that past and missing the old day-to-day that moves through The Part that Burns. In her fragment, “Big Blue,” Ouellette writes about arguable the calmest focus in her memoir: “The thing I miss most about living in the country is the very thing I eventually came to hate about it: the long snake of black tar between one place and another, the empty distances, the endless driving” (126). She goes on to describe a car she “most hated driving” as the one “I now recall so fondly,” likening it to a boat: a taped together beast that got her through long drives aiming for nowhere in particular. “The desperate escape,” as she calls the long country drives, meandering toward the unknown. 

Like the looping country roads she refers to, Ouellette loops back to her initial sentiment about the old country roads, saying, “I never, ever want to drive that way again, so desperately and without destination, but, still, I miss it more than I can say” (128). “Big Blue” serves as a mini-route around the much larger scope of The Part That Burns, a repetition of describing things with care and love and then remembering the initial cause of the fixation. So often in memoirs, it feels like a final say in what happened in a life. By revisiting her memories and retelling them, Ouellette removes that element, allowing for the story to breathe on its own. 

At one point, Ouellette writes about weeding at nine months pregnant, “I attack the overgrowth until my palms blister, my back and hips ache, my knees carve divots into the ground. This work is addictive, a trance of never-ending elimination” (97). The same work seems to have taken place in the telling of her own life story. The naming of weeds, the extraction, and later, the examination of what the weeds actually were. Some return, some have roots deep beneath the ground. The elimination, as Ouellette puts it, is never-ending.  

I found myself awestruck to the new ways in which Ouellette approaches the memoir: she offers a new discussion about growing comfortable with renewed self-discovery, even if it isn’t ever what was expected. She brings a new voice, one that’s humble and honest and yet full of fairytales in midst of all the bad, and she journeys with her reader to recount her stories, to discover their roots and what came of them. “It takes so long to become anything,” Ouellette so wonderfully puts it, “Especially yourself.” (85). The Part That Burns isn’t only a memoir, but also an homage to the learning and relearning, the declaring and undeclaring, and the stories that remain.

Purchase The Part That Burns at Split Lip Press

Find reviewer Lisa Folkmire’s poetry here.

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TRUTH VIA TYPEWRITER IN ADAM GRABOWSKI’S ‘GO ON BEWILDERMENT’

Reviewer Lisa Folkmire won Ann Arbor’s Current Magazine 2017 Poetry Contest with her poem “First Wolf.” She earned her MFA in Writing (poetry) from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poems have appeared in Alegrarse, Okay Donkey, The Mantle, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Barren Magazine, Occulum, and Glass: A Journal of Poetry, among others. 

Go On Bewilderment: Typewriter Poems   by Adam Grabowski Attack Bear Press

It’s odd to think about: somebody setting up shop with a typewriter to draw strangers into his personal space for the sake of poetry. But that’s just the gift that Adam Grabowski gives us in Go On Bewilderment. The chapbook is a compilation of Courier structured poems. True to form, Grabowski writes in his intro: “As a rule, any other grammatical or syntactical oddity that felt intuitive to the moment remains, for good or ill.” This is a chapbook of honesty within the form itself. It’s the poetry equivalent to a photo album of candid shots. A quick reminder to tell us all “we’re not so far away.” 

The poems themselves are soft, they’re not here to prove an entirely new view of the world, but instead simple truths that we all rely on. He takes these truths and sets them up in bedrooms and bookshops so humbly described that they sneak into the reader’s imagination with a firm familiarity. In his poem “Ramen,” he writes “in this time/take pictures and ask for nothing less/than everything/and they are right.” He surrounds this advice with the scent of cigarette from a resident ghost and the comfort it brings. Much like the ghost, the advice is of the tried and true variety, something that has been lingering on peoples’ lips for years. But Grabowski brings it to a whole new light. Like moving a piece of furniture from one room to another, he has a refreshing take on the familiar. 

Within this familiarity, Grabowski also plays with the bizarre. In his poem, “Fox,” he writes, “a snowing inside you/that I know that I follow/out of the darkeness/ask me anything you want.” These moments come up without warning, a nod to the typewriter-in-public approach that led to such tiny, wondrous poems. A true poet—able to speak simple truths and allow them to interact with the uncanny, and see what the audience says. Grabowski has a steady know-how in the way his voice interacts with the poems, while still maintaining a humble nature. 

In what was once supposed to be a collection of lovely poems written as offerings to strangers, we now have a collection that almost serves as a pre-COVID scrapbook. A “remember when” of sorts and a testament to a time of random bump-ins at stores and awkward conversations with strangers that you accidentally (or purposefully) exchanged smiles with. There’s something to be said about an experimental piece so perfectly timed and Grabowski’s voice shepherding us through.    

Purchase Go On Bewilderment at Attack Bear Press

See reviewer Lisa Folkmire’s poetry here.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH SINGER-SONGWRITER AND TV & FILM COMPOSER ERIC BUTTERFIELD

Eric Butterfield is a singer-songwriter based in Sonoma County, California. His latest single,“Boy In A Bubble,” is about social isolation during the worldwide pandemic. He also releases music as Sons Of The Golden West, whose most recent album was the instrumental offering, Punch Drunk Moon. His music has appeared on more than 270 TV show episodes. Eric talked to Critical Angst about his creative process and what inspires him and give advice to aspiring freelance composers.

CRITICAL ANGST: I have gotten into the habit of listening to mostly instrumental music over the last year of working remotely. Your instrumental album Punch Drunk Moon fits my mood perfectly. It is driving and atmospheric and a bit mind altering. You are a prolific lyricist, what led you to do an entirely instrumental album?

ERIC BUTTERFIELD: It started as a little bit of an accumulation of instrumentals that were kind of “on the side” from the regular songs. But, I was also making a lot of instrumentals for use in TV shows. Most of those I don't consider material that I want to release. But, over time, I created the first few instrumentals that became the beginnings of Punch Drunk Moon. 

I've loved many types of instrumental music over the years, but had never done an instrumental album. One of my favorite Beastie Boys albums is In Sounds From the Way Out. I loved what a complete picture of a departure that album is, and it inspired me to build on a set of instrumentals that I wanted to develop beyond a typical TV show production music track.

You have produced a lot of instrumental music, how is the creative approach different than for songs with lyrics?

In most ways, the creative approach is the same, but the criteria is different. As with a song, I'm constantly asking myself whether the listener will still be engaged and drawn in by the song—but now I'm only evaluating instrumentation and melody, not the lyrics. It puts more pressure on the choice of chords and melody and instrumentation. In that way, I enjoy the challenge of creating a sonic journey with no words to concretely anchor it.  

On that note, I was amused by a question posed in the photo captions in the Talking Heads' album, Stop Making Sense: “Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music for longer than they would ordinarily.” I took that sentiment as a challenge to write instrumentals that can engage a listener longer than the standard 3-minute radio format limitation.  

Your style has changed over the years -- what has inspired your recent folk and country output (under the Eric Butterfield moniker)?

Some of it's inspired by music I grew up on, and also by stuff I've discovered more recently. But I consider it less of a change in style than a shift in emphasis. A couple songs I started with for my singer-songwriter project were written back in the early '90s. Even when I was playing in heavy rock bands, I always had a variety of mellow music at home, and was working on songs on an acoustic guitar.

Back then, I could go from full-throttle noise rock at the practice space, and come home and put on something as mellow as Enya, a classic jazz album, or an early years Tom Waits collection. My recent focus shifted with a newfound desire to tell a story and make a lyrical connection. I love writing lyrics, and wanted to create music where the lyrics were central to the song, not just window dressing on the vocal melody. I kind of burned out some styles of indie rock where the lyrics tended toward obscurity and irony rather than attempting any straightforward talk of life experiences.

How do you develop music for TV and film?

It varies, in some ways, depending on the genre. Also, I like to generate ideas on different instruments, because it's easy to get stuck in a rut. Moving from guitar to piano, say, or starting on the drum kit instead of guitar, can begin something that would not have happened otherwise. I might start on the drums with the brushes to start a jazz track, but I'm certainly not doing that to record a drone for a sci-fi show, say. One thing that is the same, regardless of genre, is I'm trying to create a mood and develop on a theme that will support a scene in a TV show or film.

So far, I have not been hired to create music for a show or film. So, I made the music first, not knowing who might license it. I didn't match it to any footage. So, in some ways I've had to retrain myself and restrain myself. I have to imagine the music playing during a scene. I have to imagine a music supervisor listening to the music, wanting it to set the mood. The big no-no is a sudden change of mood, so I have to refrain from any sudden lurch in the vibe, or it will become basically unusable for most scenes.

I've been a composer at a music production house and been involved in composer groups, and everyone's looking for trends, and looking to popular shows for guidance. No one wants to waste their time producing an “already ran” sound.

How do you know or guess what music supervisors might want for productions?

I've been a composer at a music production house and been involved in composer groups, and everyone's looking for trends, and looking to popular shows for guidance. No one wants to waste their time producing an “already ran” sound. That said, I've never been the most forward-thinking person, so to be honest, I'm not the best at ferreting out the next big thing in TV soundtracks. There's a bit of a hazard in chasing that tail, and you can go in circles and make yourself miserable. I've done that a bit, and found that if I was trying to chase a sound, I better be sure I really love it and want to perfect it, or I'm not going to happy making that music just to try to make a buck. 

What excites me most about what I'm hearing now is the retro influences, because that's fun for me to incorporate the sounds and vibe of my childhood musical memories. Most recently, it's been the '80s vibes, and I've been working on music pulling from that decade. But as fast as things move these days, I might be too far behind the curve and the shows will have moved on by the time I get my music out there.  

What has been the best thing about your solo music career?

Focusing intensely on the craft of songwriting has been a real joy, a continuous learning experience. I've always been in a band. That was always my thing. Who doesn't love a great band? So, I wanted to be part of one, to soak up the energy of multiple musicians collaborating to create something unique that none of them would ever dream up single-handedly, complete with different musical backgrounds colliding, and hopefully creating something really cool in the chaos. 

That was, up until my son was born. I tried returning to my band after my hiatus to have my son, and my bandmates had decided I didn't have the time. That stung, but they were probably right. So, I squeezed my recording setup behind the living room couch and got to work composing, with the idea of pitching my songs to TV shows.

Can you speak to a favorite song you wrote and the inspiration behind it?

One of my favorite songs is “Wake Me In Paris.” It was my first single, and it made the semi-finals in the International Songwriting Competition, in the unsigned category, which was thrilling to me. I co-wrote it with Scott Mickelson, who produced the song as well.

The song is about a couple that met in Paris, and now they're separated. The inspiration was the agony of long-distance love, which I've gone through a couple times. But the song began as someone else's story. I was hired by a man to write a much earlier version of the song, to send to his lover in another county. I love writing custom songs for people because it gives you a wonderful glimpse into their lives, and to write a song that tells their story is a wonderfully personal gift.

“Wake Me In Paris” barely resembles that original beginning, but that man's personal struggle with missing his far-away girlfriend got me to thinking about my own long-distance miseries of yesteryear. And, so, a song was born.

The world is full of stupid sayings you should ignore. One of them is, “Jack of all trades, master of none.”

What, if any, are the challenges to playing all the instruments on a project?

The world is full of stupid sayings you should ignore. One of them is, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” I hate that saying. I love to tinker with everything and can't help myself. It is definitely true that doing everything yourself poses limitations (I am not Prince, after all). So, maybe my pursuit of being a multi-instrumentalist meant I'd never excel at one of them. But, in the end, it's songwriting and composing that excites me most, and being able to incorporate multiple instruments is a great tool, if you ask me, even if I'm not, say, a Jaco Pastorius on the bass.

Besides, I don't insist that I play everything if my skills won't make the cut. For the Sons of the Golden West EP, Oh, California!, I hired a local pedal steel player named Josh Yenne to round things out. Great player. Sure, I could have played my lap steel and come up with decent parts. But why do that if I can tap better talent to improve the music?

What first got you interested in music? Did you start as a drummer or fall into it because it is the most in-demand job in a band?

I just caught the bug. We didn't have any instruments in the house, so I made them. My first guitar was a shoe box with rubber bands stapled on it. My drum set was my mother's Tupperware containers, which I hit with the goal posts from my Super Jock toy (remember that thing—you smacked it on the head to make him kick the ball?). My first keyboard was a Simon Says electronic toy, which made bleeping noises. I recorded onto a big portable cassette recorder (we called it a “beat box” in the '70s). Then I learned to bounce to my stereo cassette deck while adding an overdub, and I was hooked for life.

I first took up guitar, but got a little frustrated because my hands were small, and then wanted to do drums. So, I talked my brother into taking guitar. He lost interest, but it allowed me to have both a guitar and drum set in my room to play with. Drums was my main instrument in the beginning. I had plenty of friends who played guitar. But, mainly, I loved banging on the drums. As a rowdy teenager, I found it very therapeutic. One drum teacher asked me, “Do you always hit the drums that hard?” My answer: “Yep.”

Can you tell me more about your time living in Ireland and playing in a band?

Very shortly after landing in Dublin after half a year living in London, I was introduced to a band that needed a drummer. I was backpacking, had no drum kit. But they shared their practice space with another band, whose drummer was a wonderfully generous guy, and he lent me his kit. I can't thank that guy enough, as well as the Irish in general. Wonderfully generous people. The whole experience made a big impression on me.

We played the clubs in the Temple Bar neighborhood and around Trinity College. I had a blast making a big racket there in Ireland. I had to go on my way, though, after a few months, and do my summer backpacking adventure. The band, the Mexican Pets, ended up releasing albums on Andy Cairns's (of Therapy?) label, toured Europe, and got the attention from Seymour Stein, co-founder of Sire Records. I was long gone by then, but I sure enjoyed my early days with the Pets.

The music business has changed so much since I met you in the 90s. Any thoughts on it? How is music being free on the internet a sustainable industry?

Music being free (or, perceptively free) is, clearly, not a good business model—if selling music is your only business. Still, I don't think it's all bad news. The music industry has never been just about selling music. It's also been about attracting fans to buy concert tickets and buy merchandise, and so on. In one sense, giving away music can get you more exposure and allow you to find the dedicated fans who will spend money on other music releases that aren't being streamed.

It can sound scary, thinking that younger listeners simply don't value music because they don't have to buy it. But that devaluation didn't start with streaming services. You could say the same thing about music playing on the radio, and music playing in markets and department stores. People have come to expect that music is just there and they're entitled to it. But, truth be told, how many albums have you bought that left a bad taste in your mouth because they only had one or two good songs, and the rest were mediocre filler? So, we're back to pushing singles, like the old 45s.

If your only goal is to sell albums, yeah, that train has left the station. But I'd be a hypocrite to condemn it outright. Although the internet enabled Napster and now delivers the streaming services, which pay musicians poorly, it also enabled me to pitch my music to TV shows without having to mail CDs to the studios in L.A. or drive three hundred miles in hopes of getting a meeting with TV executives. The internet also allows me to find clients for my music production services, find customers who want a custom song, and connect with music fans around the globe even though I haven't toured.

Have you ever happened upon your music watching television?

That actually has not happened, surprisingly. I've walked into places with a TV show playing that my music has appeared in, but I've never accidentally stumbled on a show with my music in it. I have, of course, looked up shows that used my music, to see how it was used. You know, just for research. Not for ego-stroking at all.

What's the most difficult thing about doing all the recording yourself?

Learning to enforce a left brain/right brain separation rule. I still don't know what that rule is, exactly, but I do my best to block out other duties so creative time isn't interrupted. It's not ideal being my own producer. It's distracting to have to both play the instrument and run the recording session. Sometimes, I screw up and don't get a take recorded, operate the computer. If I had a nickel for every time I envisioned the fantasy of a producer on the other side of the glass handling all that so I could focus on the part I was trying to nail, I'd be a wealthy man.

How did you get started writing music for television?

After my son was born and I didn't have a band anymore, I really needed a musical outlet. I wanted to take my music in a new direction. I wanted to branch out and explore the mellower songwriting I'd always been doing, but never had much of an outlet for. I had been laid off from my job, with a repetitive strain injury, and I was staying home with my newborn son. So, I needed something to fill in the gaps between naps and changing diapers. Songwriting and writing instrumentals for TV shows seemed like a good fit.

What advice do you have if someone wants to break into production music?

Patience and persistence. It's a long lead time to getting music on TV shows. You have to research, network, and do a whole lot of submitting to find the libraries and sync agencies that will get your music placed. The libraries that get somebody else the most placements may not be the same ones that worked for me. My “short list” is of 120 libraries and sync agencies that I am in or plan to pitch to, and that's just a small fraction of what's out there. New ones pop up, then disappear. The biggest ones don't take unsolicited music, so you have to find the ones that do, and figure out how to distinguish yourself. And then, you wait some more to see if they can get your music any love from the TV industry.

Eric Butterfield’s website 

Sons of the Golden West

Eric Butterfield’s YouTube Channel 

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A DOLLOP OF LOSERS: SHAPPY SEASHOLTZ LOOKS BACK ON HIS DAYS AS A ROAD POET ON THE 1994 LOLLAPALOOZA ALTERNATIVE ROCK TOUR

Shappy being interviewed by poet Maggie Estep on MTV at Lollapalooza in 1994

What's up, punks? My name is Shappy and this is the story of how I ended up representing Generation X nerds as a "Spoken Word Artist" during the 1994 Lollapalooza tour. I promise to drop names like Gallieo dropped an orange!

So, in 1994 I was living in Chicago trying to make something happen in the theater scene and stumbled upon the Uptown Poetry Slam at the Green Mill and was instantly attracted to the idea of competitve poetry. I had a background in forensics (competitive speaking) in college so I was already familar with how to get a point across in a short time and dazzle a crowd with perfomance trickery. I wrote all about being a slacker, the forgotten Generation X and sprinkled all sorts of pop culture references in there and the crowd ate it up!

By 1994, there had already been a few National Poetry Slams and the slam was having it's Pop Cultural Moment. Maggie Estep was releasing sexy & sassy spoken word albums and touring around the country with Henry Rollins, Wammo (from Austin, TX more on him later) and Reg E. Gaines who went on to write "Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk.” So poetry was on the MTV radar and Lollapalooza decided that they were going to have a Spoken Word tent that would feature up and coming wordsmiths from all over the USA.

Maggie Estep interviews Shappy on MTV (skip to 7:26)

So some of the bigger names, like Maggie Estep, got booked early but at that time there weren't as many BIG NAMES in the spoken word scene as there is today. So Lollapalooza decided to have poetry slams in all of the major cities in the USA to determine the best poets from those scenes! Very American Idol but, you know, in smoky bars.

The day of the big slam off it was a first come, first served affair just to get on the list to read so not only were some of the best poets from Chicago in line but poets from all over the Midwest who heard about it through the grapevine showed up to compete for the chance to read your poetry on the spoken word stage as a ROAD POET as part of the ‘94 tour which included meals, hotels and an ALL ACCESS PASS. You got to be a rock star poet for two weeks with the Beastie Boys, Smashing Pumpkins, L7, The Breeders, Nick Cave, Green Day, Tribe Called Quest and George Clinton & The P-Funk All Stars! NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC VOL. 94!

So after 30 poets got up and spit on the mic, the crowd decided that I had the stuff and that ALL ACCESS PASS was mine all mine! I should mention that all of this was happening just days after they discovered Kurt's body so all of artist types were trying to process the fact that our Morrison was no longer with us. In fact, Nirvana was supposed to be the headliner that year. So now you have an idea of the mood of that poetry open mic was like. It was pretty dark and almost every poet mentioned Kurt in some way, including me! In fact here's a section from the poem I read that night.

You are dreaming of skydiving with the Lord Jesus Christ

and he jumps out and yells: "Follow Me, son!"

and you jump out after him

and you're pulling at your ripcord

and nothing's happening

and you're falling,falling, falling

and when you land you are on a cross next to Jesus, but it's not Jesus.

It's Kurt Cobain wearing a dime store beard

and he looks over at you

and says: "Welcome to the Stupid Club!"

So after winning the slam, I got to go to Lollapalooza in Chicago and read poems all day with my poetry pals and we had a freaking blast. Then I got pulled aside to check out the tour  bus I would be living in for the next 2 weeks! It was Kenny Roger's old tour bus! I got to meet the other touring poets and the organizers and Reverend Mudd who came up with the REV. MUDD'S LITTLE ARMAGEDDON & SPOKEN WORD REVIVAL TENT. Mudd was this scrawny hippie dude who toured the previous year with a soapbox and a megaphone and basically got paid to yell at people and start fights! Fun!

Well, I guess he was real good at starting fights because that night one of the road poets threw him into a glass table in the hotel lobby!

Looks like I just got an extra week to rock that f---ing mic!

NEXT TIME: I HOPE YOU HAD THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE! I meet all the rock stars!

Shappy performing at the Green Mill in Chicago in 2018

Shappy Seasholtz has an extensive 8-Track tape collection, an impressive selection of View-Master reels, a vast array of plastic figurines of old advertising mascots and far too many long boxes of comic books. Shappy is a National Poetry Slam Champion and is the creator of the Nerd Slam, a poetry competition that is half nerd poetry, half trivia-off. He has appeared on CNN, MTV and HBO's DEF POETRY. You can spot Shappy in the nerdy cult classic FANBOYS standing next to Seth Rogen during the fight scene between Star Trek and Star Wars fans. His most recent collection of poems, SPOKEN NERD REVOLUTION was published by Penmanship Books in 2011 and his work has appeared in several WRITE BLOODY PRESS anthologies.

MORE SHAPPY on CRITICAL ANGST: SHAPPY’S 10 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT KINGS ISLAND – THE BEST AMUSEMENT PARK EVER

Shappy’s epic performance poem “Butterfly” 

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AN INTERVIEW WITH BEN MANCELL OF NYC’S FUZZY WARBLES CASSETTES

An interview with Ben Mancell of New York City’s Fuzzy Warbles Cassettes

Ben Mancell was born and raised in Ann Arbor, MI. He started playing in bands at the age of 12 and "has pretty much been in a band ever since.” Some of the bands he’s been in include: Factory Rat, Etch-A-Sketch, Nadsat Nation, Pist-N-Broke, MHz, Rael Rean, Elevations, Imaginary Icons, Famous Logs In History, Fun Time Objects. 

CRITICAL ANGST: What made you want to start a cassette label?

BEN MANCELL: About 10 years ago I was asked to record a solo synthesizer album for a friend’s cassette label. I had accumulated a collection of vintage analog synthesizers and I was building my own synthesizers and sequencers using DIY kits. I ended up not recording anything and always had regrets about that. A few years ago I started recording some synth stuff and eventually had enough material for an album. At the same time my band Famous Logs In History had recorded four songs. So I had two recordings that I wanted to self-release. I couldn’t afford a vinyl release and the production turnaround was too long. I did not want to release CDs so I felt the cassette tape was a logical conclusion. It was easy and cheap to duplicate and I could include digital downloads with every cassette purchase (as of course not everyone has a cassette player these days).

You have put together a big roster of bands in a short time -- what is the process for finding bands?

My goal was to have an FW release every month. I started the label in February 2018 and released 11 cassettes during the first year. I’ve slowed down a bit after releasing an ambitious double cassette retrospective of the 70s Manchester punk band The Hamsters and related bands featuring over 40 songs including some unreleased tracks featuring Marc Riley and Paul Hanley from The Fall, Peter Hook of Joy Division/New Order, and Mike Joyce of The Smiths. The bands that I’ve released are either current bands (often that have played shows with my band) or archival material from bands that I like.

Is there an overarching Fuzzy Warbles sound, theme or statement? I notice most have an analog keyboard -- even your surf band! (The Zolephants)

I do like minimal synth and DIY/art punk stuff. In fact starting a cassette label was heavily influenced by early 80s cassette culture, especially Deleted and Fuck Off Records. However I never wanted to limit the label to a specific genre of music. I’ve released hardcore, no wave, surf, electrofunk...

Any plan for a vinyl release? (Maybe a label compilation?)

The lack of funds for a vinyl release basically kick started the idea for a cassette label but yeah I would like to have a vinyl release...gimme some money! Actually, if I was to release vinyl I would have to be more involved, set up proper distribution, and overall dedicate more time and resources to the label in order to sell enough units to recoup costs. The label has always been something I enjoy doing in my spare time which I don’t have a lot of (working full time, married with two young kids, playing in two bands, etc.). The upfront costs to release a cassette are very low and if something doesn’t sell I don’t have much to lose.

What kind of gear went into producing your Benzoil album?

The gear used on the Benzoil release included the following: Hohner SH-10 Korg MS-10 Korg Arp Odyssey MFOS SoundLab MiniSynth MFOS 16 Step Analog Sequencer Oberheim SEM Roland CR-78 drum machine Roland RE-201 Space Echo Roland System 101 Powertran Transcendent 2000 Wurlitzer MLM Yamaha EM-70 Mixer/Spring Reverb

How about a word or phrase that pops into your head for each of the bands on the label? (Links are provided to each bands’ Fuzzy Warbles Bandcamp.)

Germ House: Boston/Providence’s Finest Far Corners: Same as above (same members different band) Pelvi$$: Sludge Schlock Warmly Lights: Deep Storage Pepper Kings: NYC’s Best Autoharp Punk Band Swilson: 21st Century Junk Shop Glam SPREDTR: Funky Robots The Zolephants: Tronic Spaghetti Western OOF: Baritone Stab Famous Logs in History: Damaged Haikus Benzoil: John Bender wannabe The Hamsters: Stupid songs for sussed prats Rodent Kontrol: Ann Arbor’s Flipper Fun Time Objects: Scrappy Didactics

What have you been listening to lately?

The last 5 albums I’ve listened to: Manchester Mekon, No Forgetting Here & Now, Give and Take Kevin Ayers and the Whole World, Shooting At the Moon Johnny Moped, Cycledelic Androids of Mu, Blood Robots

You’ve been in NYC over a decade -- seems like you are pretty settled.

My wife and I moved to NYC in 2003. Since then we’ve bought a house and now have two daughters. The city has a way of sucking you in where it’s difficult to leave. We’re here for the long haul.

Do you miss anything about Metro Detroit?

Cheap records!

Beside the FW lineup, what is local and interesting in New York City right now?

I don’t go to shows much anymore unless I’m playing or going to see friends bands. Fortunately I have some friends that are DJs at WFMU that are on top of what’s happening on the local music scene. There’s a lot of good bands happening now such as Brandy, OPTO S, and Consolidated Plastics.

I’m sure I missed something. Could you ask yourself a question and then answer it?

What does the future hold for Fuzzy Warbles Cassettes? New releases from Fun Time Objects and Famous Logs In History and a couple of archival releases from some Michigan bands are being planned. Thanks for the interview Craig!

Thanks Ben!

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KIMBERLY KING PARSONS' FANTASTIC COLLECTION 'BLACK LIGHT' ILLUMINATES ODD CORNERS

BLACK LIGHT BY KIMBERLY KING PARSONS VINTAGE

I dug into a lot of new books this summer and Kimberly King Parsons’ short story collection, Black Light, was a stand out. Let me attempt to sing Parsons’ praises. There are the precise particulars -- often grotesque close-ups -- held up to the author’s black light which defamiliarizes the ordinary and allows us to see details we might prefer to overlook. There are her original observations which are cinematic in detail and would be delightful as background but often are woven back into the narrative -- callbacks that are funny and meaningful.

In the first piece, “Guts,” the main character, Sheila, is dating a doctor in training. Dissatisfied with her life she seems to live through his. Her outlook is changed -- seeing people as patients and lists of symptoms. This lets Parsons, who knows enough about physiology to freak me out, make observations that range from very funny to oddly gruesome.

Driving “Guts” are multiple layers of conflict -- Sheila’s body image, her relationship with her boyfriend, her mental instability, her horrible co-worker. Sheila’s daily routine and its inhabitants fast become familiar and the subsequent deviations are shocking and hilarious.

After laughing and cringing through the 28 pages of “Guts” I was left wanting another chapter of Sheila’s story. I moved on to the following eleven stories all which carried similar joys and star yearning outsiders cataloging strange worlds. The stories were effortless to enter but made me squirm a little. I’m looking forward to Kimberly King Parsons’ first novel, The Boiling River, forthcoming from Knopf.

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SHAPPY’S 10 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT KINGS ISLAND -- THE BEST AMUSEMENT PARK EVER

10 COOL THINGS ABOUT KINGS ISLAND AMUSEMENT PARK IN THE 70s & 80s 

By Shappy Seasholtz

1. When you walk through the entrance, you are greeted by Fred & Barney, Scooby-Doo, Hong Kong Phooey and half of The Banana Splits in front of a dancing water fountain in front of a fake Eiffel Tower!

2. In 1975, Evel Kneivel jumped over 14 Greyhound buses in the parking lot setting a new world record!

"Wooden Roller Coaster - The Beast at Kings Island Theme Park" by Warren County CVB is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

3. It has THE BEAST! The biggest, baddest, longest, fastest, wooden roller coaster in the world! On one of it's test runs it ripped the head off a dummy! (Or was it really a human being?)

4. Both The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family shot episodes there!

5. When you rode The Screamin' Demon, one of the world's first looping roller coasters, it would stop mid-loop and people's wallets and sunglasses would fall out on to a little island full of monkeys in front of the Wild Animal Safari. The monkeys would throw all the tourist flotsam and jetsam at each other like their own poop!

6. Crafty lions and leopards kept finding ways to break out of the Wild Animal Safari which added a real sense of danger to that area of the park!

7. They sold fruit drinks in molded plastic fruit that represented whatever flavor you were drinking. Grape juice in grapes, orange drink in oranges, etc. As a kid I thought this was marketing GENIUS!

In The Happy Land Of Hanna-Barbera they had a ride called the Enchanted Voyage which was an air-conditioned boat ride through a giant television set.

8. They had an old-timey locomotive train ride that took you back in time to the pioneer days and real cowboys and indians used to jump out of the woods and on to the moving train scaring the crap out of little kids (including me)!

9. TimberWolf Theater got cool bands to play! I saw The Four Tops & The Temptations with my mom & dad! My first concert! Over the years I see Huey Lewis & The News, .38 Special, The Go-Go's, Paul Young and Tears For Fears! Shout, shout, let it all out!

10. In The Happy Land of Hanna-Barbera they had a ride called Enchanted Voyage (see a vintage home movie below) which was an air-conditioned boat ride through a giant television set. While you waited in line they played all the theme songs to my favorite Hanna-Barbera shows! I must have taken this Enchanted Voyage a hundred times! When you floated in there were all of your favorite cartoon characters come to life! The Hillbilly Bears! Wacky Races! Squiddly Diddly! At the end of the ride you entered a Scooby-Doo style haunted house and then spat out into some sort of psychedelic circus. Then they changed it to The Smurfs in the 80s and harshed my mellow. But I remember that ride like I just got off the boat and back in line.

It might have been the closest thing to nirvana I have ever experienced.

Shappy Seasholtz has an extensive 8-Track tape collection, an impressive selection of View-Master reels, a vast array of plastic figurines of old advertising mascots and far too many long boxes of comic books. Shappy is a National Poetry Slam Champion and is the creator of the Nerd Slam, a poetry competition that is half nerd poetry, half trivia-off. He has appeared on CNN, MTV and HBO's DEF POETRY. His most recent collection of poems, SPOKEN NERD REVOLUTION was published by Penmanship Books in 2011 and his work has appeared in several WRITE BLOODY PRESS anthologies. He is currently in Michigan working on his poetry memoir -- AMERICAN BUCKEYE.

Enchanted Voyage home video from 1980:

Commericals from the Smurfin’ Time era:

[criticalangst]

TEEN CREATIVE WRITERS DESCRIBE THE TASTE OF COCONUT LA CROIX

I chilled a case of La Croix Coconut Sparkling Water and offered it up to  my high school creative writing students. After a few swigs I asked them to write down their thoughts. These are my favorite responses:

This tastes like a pediatrician’s office. -Rachel

It tastes like coconut and salt. It burns. -Bri

Health code violations in a restaurant on an alien planet. -Madeline

This is like the burned remains of a Mound Bar that was hit with foam from a fire extinguisher. -Rachel

It tastes like when you were little and you said a bad word so your mother made you brush your teeth with soap, but this happened so many times you learned which soap tastes best, so you pick that one. -Jess

It is like TV static dancing on my tongue. -Archer

It’s like electrified tap water. -Archer

Drinking this is like licking the armpit of a middle school girl. -Rachel

Even as I write this, minutes later, its essence still tingles on my tongue. It’s like an unwelcome hitchhiker. I want to keep drinking it just to see if I develop superpowers energized by the hatred burning inside me. -Tallulah 

Finally, the taste of drywall in a can. -Anonymous

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MENDING TRAUMA: A REVIEW OF ‘WHITE GOAT  BLACK SHEEP’

White Goat Black Sheep  By Kimberly Ann Priest  Finishing Line Press

When I first heard Kim Priest read in a small coffee shop in Mt. Pleasant, I was in awe of the way her lowered voice could carry her poems about domestic abuse and sexual assault so carefully out to her audience. She had a cadence, soft and lullaby like, willing us to lean in closer as she almost hummed her words out to tell the darkest parts of her story. 

The book explores a relationship between sisters, haunted by assault and their mother, attempting to mend her daughters, all in the expanse of a marsh like dreamland.

Priest’s first chapbook, White Goat Black Sheep, carries her foreboding words out to her reader with a selection of 24 poems, each carrying its own warning, its own tiptoe across a river of watching trees, waiting crows, bleeding waters. The book explores a relationship between sisters, haunted by assault and their mother, attempting to mend her daughters, all in the expanse of a marsh like dreamland. 

These poems are often a fight between outside tension and intimate adoration, as Priest writes, “I think I am the part of a man he wants to forget./I think I am a bone./Little sister, I think we are two disjointed lines stretched across a page:/You and I./Little sister, I think we are in rows and there is/breath between us./I think it is a long breath with/water above, water beneath” (4). The water above and water beneath becomes a constant throughout the book, a reflection of the sisters: one figuring out the tricks of the river, the other waiting for the rain to fall.  

Priest’s dreamland contains more women within, as she writers, “There are hundreds of sisters by the river/They wear smocks./They fatten and feed” (16). She watches the sisters, observing their innocence, she is a veteran of the dreamland as they are just being introduced. When she spots her own, she grows fearful, offering to scare the looming evil within the dreamland, all while risking herself. 

White Goat Black Sheep is begging the reader to follow Priest’s soft hum through a dreamscape that vibrates with danger and truth.

After offering to put herself in danger in order to save her sister, Priest writes in the next poem, “Notice the rust in our waters, crushed like a fire at dawn/roaming the hills of an altar, roaming the body it takes” (17). The trauma of her life, she advises, can color the water beneath. She hints at an unspoken strength in this trauma, perhaps carried by more than herself.

Therein rests the importance of Priest’s lyrical poetics: she’s humming to us a truth: that many have suffered assault and its following trauma without so much as home remedies to take care of it, the outer existence of our lives expected to remain the same, even when the world floods, even with the flood waters turn to rusted red. 

White Goat Black Sheep, while only a year old, has aged well. It doesn’t so much force the concept of assault and trauma onto its pages as it threads them in, begging the reader to follow Priest’s soft hum through a dreamscape that vibrates with danger and truth. We transform into the little sister, and she becomes our mother, hoping to mend what she can as she hands us her story as an offering of understanding.  

-Lisa Folkmire

Reviewer Lisa Folkmire recently won the Current Magazine 2017 Poetry Contest with her poem “First Wolf.” She earned her MFA in Writing (poetry) from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poems have appeared in Atlas & Alice, Yellow Chair Review’s Rock the Chair Challenge, Huron Tree Literary Arts Journal, Erstwhile Magazine, and most recently in ThoughtCrime Press’s Not My President Anthology, distributed to all of congress in August.

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Po-Mo a Go-Go - Adventures in Sampling: Black Lips’ “Veni Vici Vidi” & The Swamp Rats’ “I’m Going Home”

Welcome to Po-MoTown where we look at the postmodern process of sampling – AKA reinvention/creative borrowing/intermusicality (or if you prefer, plagiary). We’re just having fun here and facilitating musical discovery by indulging in some pop archeology.

In this installment we’ll look at The Black Lips’ “Veni Vidi Vici,” and the stand-out track from their acclaimed Good, Bad, Not Evil LP. On this song the Black Lips came, saw and sampled 60s proto punkers The Swamp Rats “I’m Going Home” (from their compilation LP Disco Still Sucks).

Years ago, when I first heard “Veni Vidi Vici” this track stuck out with its hypnotic drum loop – the kind of catchy that demands a repeat listen – I had a look at the liner notes and saw the Swamp Rats were credited.

At the time I thought it was interesting a lo-fi band devoted to the ‘66 aesthetic sampled something. In my mind it gave them depth the same way The Dirtbombs covering house music (Party Store) shakes things up. “Veni Vidi Vici” is a great tune and I appreciated being hipped to the Swamp Rats. Take a listen.

Black Lips - “Veni Vidi Vici”

Swamp Rats - “Going Home”

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SHORT AND SHADY: ‘TINY CRIMES’ IS FIENDISHLY FUN FLASH FICTION

TINY CRIMES EDITED BY LINCOLN MICHEL & NADXIELI NIETO CATAPULT

I got interested in Tiny Crimes when I saw that Lincoln Michel was a co-editor. We reviewed his dark, quirky short story collection Upright Beasts a few years ago. The assonant title aside, most of the crimes in this anthology of flash fiction are not so tiny. The perpetrators in the 40 short stories in this collection are often heinous and occasionally psychotic. My favorite leans toward the latter category. In Richie Narvaez’s “Withhold the Dawn” the protagonist lures IRS agents to her house and then brutally murders them. She then turns them into empanada filling which she gifts to her neighbors. I’m averse to gore (I often close my eyes when watching The Walking Dead) but this was a fun take on revenge.

There are lots of nifty touches in Tiny Crimes. The index is amusing, if not exactly necessary -- here’s an excerpt from G section: (“...Gangsters, Gated Community, Gasoline -station, -used as accelerant, Good Guy -claims to be, Guilt -y of being a bystander, human-, Gun...”). There are stories that are straightforward flash and many that are experimental, like “Airport Paperback” by Adam Hirsch which is heavily redacted. A few of the stories are translations -- one from Chinese -- the original text presented side-by-side with the English.

I was inspired flipping through this collection and found it useful in my day job -- not doing crimes but teaching creative writing to high school kids. My only crimes of late have been not updating this blog and maybe sharing “Withhold the Dawn” with my students. “Okay class, trigger warning: unknowing cannibalism, axe murders…”. I actually had to say that. Anyway, they loved it -- and no one reported me. Win, win.

So steal a copy of this book from your local bookseller or get a copy from the wonderful imprint Catapult. Catapult is doing lots of cool literary things and giving new writers a forum (just not this writer -- ha, ha, -- I entered the contest to get published in this book). Tiny Crimes, released June 5th, is perfect for the beach, the plane, or the stakeout. 

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THE FRAGMENTED SELF IN CATIE HANNIGAN’S ‘WATER FRAGMENTS’

The Fragmented Self in Catie Hannigan’s Water Fragments - Tammy Chapbooks

It’s a rare treat to get to review a friend’s newest chapbook. I remember hearing about Catie Hannigan’s Water Fragments throughout my last year as a student at Vermont College of Fine Arts as her very creative take on a critical thesis, exploring bodies of water, poetry, and in turn, what it is to be human.

Hannigan explores water in three categories: sea, river, and rain. She also gives water different human characteristics: loneliness, anxiety, desire among them. Pulling from various works of the poets she admires, she creates her own watershed of artistry from the likes of Frank O’Hara, Pablo Neruda, Yusef Komunyakaa, Elizabeth Biship, among others. They become water fragments in themselves, each providing new tension, textures, and emotion to her exploration.

Take her approach to the sea, for example. In her section “Aloneness,” Hannigan considers, “If it was possible to be born of the sea, perhaps we could soften the common and universal human anguish of love, hope, and despair, because we would have learned the power of our aloneness” (13). Suddenly society becomes the watershed Hannigan is referring to, each of us a sea in ourselves attempting to understand the rivers, islands, cliffs surrounding us, as well as our place around them.

Perhaps the most outstanding aspect of Hannigan’s writing is her casual approach to a large topic. She writes to garner more curiosity from her reader. Water Fragments, though filled with research and footnotes isn’t as much an overly academic piece of writing as it is a collection of field notes, an annotated poem, asking the reader to continue the conversation. As Hannigan writes in her conclusion, “This is to say that poetic thought is critical thought. This is an attempt to level poetic language with critical language, and perhaps unveil the greater possibilities of language to make sense of reality” (38).

Water Fragments is a selection of consideration relatable to every poet. Hannigan writes of stars as “the advantaged abandoned; generous in quantity and light” and that “we rely on the stars to remind us to continue” (8). Her little book is just that, a piece of glimmering light that we are alone and together; a collection of information on the natural and social, it’s one of those rare finds that brings back hope in humanity.

Reviewer Lisa Folkmire recently won the Current Magazine 2017 Poetry Contest with her poem “First Wolf.” She earned her MFA in Writing (poetry) from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poems have appeared in Atlas & Alice, Yellow Chair Review’s Rock the Chair Challenge, Huron Tree Literary Arts Journal, Erstwhile Magazine, and most recently in ThoughtCrime Press’s Not My President Anthology, to be distributed to all of congress in August.

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IS THE COFFEE TABLE BOOK DEAD? NEVER. FRESH TAKES ON VINTAGE CAMERAS & AIRSTREAM TRAILERS

Living the Airstream Life by Karen Flett - Harper Collins Design & Retro Photo: An Obsession by David Ellwand - Candlewick Studio

The coffee table book trades on quirky interests and is often dedicated to nostalgia--hey I’m nostalgic for the coffee table book itself. These two titles prove that the Internet has not killed the genre. And I’m thankful. For one, these books are the goto last minute present for the desperate gift buyer. (They also make handy weapons, these tomes weighing a combined five pounds.) 

My wife has a nice box camera collection, including a rare pink Beau Brownie I bought her a decade ago. They are lovely things, if not mostly obsolete. The dedicated, my wife among them, still use the cameras and develop their own photos. What is really neat about Retro Photo is that, along with over 100 photographs of vintage cameras, there is an accompanying image taken with each camera.

I have always coveted the iconic, retro but always modern Airstream trailer. I’m in the market for a camper, but on a teacher’s salary I’d probably have to settle for reading this book in a pop-up trailer. (Though it would take an Airstream to convince my wife to go camping with me.) I can dream though and this comprehensive book is all things -- a buyer’s guide, popular archeology, and photo book, with multitude of short chapters providing a porthole into all aspects of “The Airstream Life.” 

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FINDING THE ROAD OUT: LISA FOLKMIRE REVIEWS KAREN SOLIE’S LATEST COLLECTION

Reviewer Lisa Folkmire recently won the Current Magazine 2017 Poetry Contest with her poem “First Wolf.” She earned her MFA in Writing (poetry) from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poems have appeared in Atlas & Alice, Yellow Chair Review’s Rock the Chair Challenge, Huron Tree Literary Arts Journal, Erstwhile Magazine, and most recently in ThoughtCrime Press’s Not My President Anthology, to be distributed to all of congress in August.

The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out by Karen Solie - Farrar, Straus and Giroux

My copy of Karen Solie’s The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out is dog-eared more than most of my collections. Every time I read through it, I come across a new poem that I have to dog ear. When I reach my previously dog-eared selections, I find myself wondering why I’ve marked them. Solie’s poetry is as jarring as her focus. 

She shifts from image to image, leaving half realized conclusions and mid-situations in her wake as she draws an ending out of some far-off corner of her brain. Reading her poetry is like reading a book’s footnotes without knowing what they’re referring to. There’s something to be said about this, about Solie’s desire to let her concerns and confusion take the reins of her poetry and lead the reader through her collection. 

In the title poem of the collection, Solie writes, “Many things we know/by their effects: void in the rock/that the river may advance, void/in the river that the fish may advance” and so on, her images changing from river to fish to helicopter to mote, to the completely vague “cause” (53 l.5-7). 

Solie leads her reader through the depths of her uncertainty with her poems about owning the world, finding a chorus of junkyard cars, the slow and ugly realization of gentrification in the town she’s living in. 

In her poem, “When Asked Why He’d Been Talking to Himself, Pyrrho Replied He was Practicing to be a Nice Fellow,” Solie opens with an image of the narrator carrying a ladder, writing, “The feet of my ladder/will be planted on the earth, its hands/in the branches of the stars./History steadies it and will not be persuaded otherwise./From its topmost I contemplate oilsands, acts of/war, abandoned dogs sobbing in confusion/and grief, the correlative of which is all the world’s joy. A fear follows, if experience holds,/one’s inner badger stuck in one’s inner drain” (12 l.4-12). This transcendence, from realization to fear, follows the trajectory of the bulk of Solie’s collection. 

She points to the world with her poetry as if to say, “look, we did this. And we still don’t know where we’re going.” That is to say, through scientific awakening and social alertness, Solie writes what so many of us grapple with in our own minds every day: a need to figure out what’s to come next in a time when everything seems far away from the present.

-Lisa Folkmire

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NEED A LEISURE OPPORTUNITY? TRY PROTO IDIOT

I’m digging my promo of Manchester’s Proto Idiot’s Leisure Opportunity on Slovenly (to be released November 3rd). To my ears, the LP has a quirky, minimalist vibe ala UK greats Wire, Swell Maps and Television Personalities. 

Proto Idiot are a tad more sedate than singer Andrew Anderson’s previous project The Hipshakes, which has more garagey bite and is definitely worth checking out as well. Both bands are on tour in the USA right now. 

Fun, goofy lyrics with a philosophical bent and varied, catchy riffs have kept me coming back to this disc all week. So glad this quirky brand of punk is still in production.

[criticalangst]

SOMETHING I LEARNED TODAY: TEENS HEAR HÜSKER DÜ FOR THE FIRST TIME

The first time I heard Hüsker Dü it was in the late 80s on the Today Show. I grew up on an Air Force base in Germany and we got live satellite broadcasts from the US, so it was around 4pm, after school. The Today Show was in Minneapolis and the band was playing live on the street. I thought it sounded horrible.

I was into punk at the time but I did not get Hüsker Dü. I thought there must be a technical problem, it was just a wall of noise – a tuneless clamor. The vocals were drowned out and I could not believe that this sound was intentional.  

A few years later I was at college in Michigan and I heard Zen Arcade. It became the soundtrack to my twenties, influencing me musically and emotionally. Today it is easy take their sonic juxtaposition for granted but Hüsker Dü broke new ground.

I never saw Hüsker Dü but was lucky enough to catch a Grant Hart solo performance with my friend Bart Bealmear years ago. Bart just wrote a great piece on Hüsker Dü  for Dangerous Minds. (Critical Angst recently interviewed Bart about his music and writing.)

With Grant Hart’s passing, I thought the best way to celebrate Hüsker Dü was to play it for the teens in my creative writing classes. They occasionally write reviews of music. I was curious how many had heard of the band. Out of 70 kids in my intermediate and advanced classes only two students had heard the band before.

I played “Something I Learned Today,” “Pink Turns Blue,” and “I’m Never Talking to You Again.” They could write a review or any kind of response they wanted to. I thought I’d give fans an opportunity to vicariously hear the band again, for the first time. I made it clear that the reviews should be honest and didn’t need to be positive. Here are excerpts from some of the responses: Their music makes you want to do something… move. –R.K.

Why is their music so extreme but clear? –J.C.

I liked the aggression with the melody. –Josh

Hüsker Dü is a band I would’ve listened to in 9th grade. One of the songs I heard gave me a headache and I could not understand anything they were saying. 

They give me an energized feeling. –D.P.

“Never Talking to You Again,” is one of those songs you play when you’re mad at someone and you sit in your room and turn it up all the way and scream every word. Then your mom tells you to shut up and so you put your headphones on and still scream the lyrics. It’s like, an angry song. –U.K.

“Something I Learned Today” is the kind of rock song that leaves you a little breathless. –J.D.

I don’t appreciate the fact that the dude singing is hiding behind the music.” –C.S.

The titles of these songs are very poetic. The last song [“Pink Turns to Blue”] sounded like Guided by Voices. My dad played Hüsker Dü in the tape deck when I was a kid. -V.S.

Hüsker Dü is a cool, heavy band! They’re pretty darn awesome, but the screaming was a bit scary. –D.M.

The first song [“Something I Learned Today”] was really crazy. I a little too chaotic for me with his screams and the upbeat continuous music. The lyrics have a powerful message and tell a story. –K.L.

Hüsker Dü is hardcore. I don’t listen to them much but they remind me of the Detroit band, Death. “Never Talking to You Again” isn’t as punk as I’d like, but it’s still good. -E.W.

“Something I Learned Today” – my head throbs a little at the screams – even as a screamo fan. “Never Taking to You Again” is feels really good to listen to. “Pink Turns to Blue” – I just added this to my play list. –O.B.

The drummer is the best part of “Pink Turns to Blue.” -J.S.

This band is definitely something I would listen to. In fact, I think I will start listening to them. I really like both singers, which is weird. Usually when a band gets a new singer, I end up not liking them. –K.B.

“Never Talking to You Again” is something you can really jam to when you’re having a broken heart, or just don’t want to mess with anyone anymore.” –M.P.

“Pink Turns to Blue” reminds me of “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath. I really enjoyed the music, it was almost kind of sweet. -F.P.

“Pink Turns to Blue” seems like a confusing song. The singer speaks on how he doesn’t what to do. I don’t why he asked so much. -K. B.

It gives me a feeling of unknown nostalgia – I’m definitely going to start listening to it. –A.J.

My classes also reviewed The Bonnevilles & wrote about life before the internet. 

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Hüsker Dü on the Today Show, 5/20/87

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WHAT EXACTLY IS FUN? IN ‘PLAY ANYTHING’ THE BRILLIANT IAN BOGOST RIFFS ON PLAY, IRONY, THE INTERNET & MODERN LIFE

PLAY ANYTHING IAN BOGOST – BASIC BOOKS

Play Anything is equal parts, self help and popular philosophy (popular for its readability, not its lack of depth). It meets us where we live and upends concepts all we take for granted (like what fun is).

Ian Bogost teaches us that everything and every thing is a game. Every situation has limitations and a game is only defined limits. But games aren’t always fun (depending on your definition). Bogost’s dark definition of fun is “recognizing something new in the suffocating, familiar depths.”

Bogost also refers repeatedly to defamiliarization, a concept rare enough that Word tells me I’m spelling it wrong. Bogost claims “arts purpose is defamiliarization.” I continually preach this mantra to my creative writing students. I tell them that the goal of the writer is to make the familiar fresh using an alien perspective. Bogost gives me plenty more ways to say it, one of my favorites is, “poetry…turns speech into playgrounds.”

(One example of Bogost using, not referencing defamiliarization was in the chapter, “Fun Isn’t Pleasure, It’s Novelty” where he describes the “ghastly, hopeless boredom” of a 14-hour transpacific flight. He writes, “Spending that long strapped to a chair in a humming metal tube is an unnatural fate that challenges the limits of one’s very humanity.”)

Play Anything provides another example of defamiliarization that surprised me. The author appreciates how Instagram’s filters defamiliarize our photographs enough to “activate authenticity.” He feels because the filters distort reality enough to allow us to see the near present more clearly.

Play Anything also includes a chapter length polemic on irony and on ironic sharing via the Internet (he calls it “digital poaching.”) Bogost thinks irony is a modern sickness the result of oversupply. He describes irony as a “plastic cover on your grandmother’s sofa—it remov[ing] [us] from possible experience.”

Ironically, Bogost has a Tumblr devoted to items he photographs at Walmart (scroll down to see the “Hair Mayonnaise”). He recognizes and wrestles with his hypocrisy,“…I had to make the blog to demonstrate to you, dear reader, how easy it is to wrest things for ourselves.” Hypocrisy forgiven, Play Anything is illuminating and made my brain tingle and is highly recommended. 

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