I was happily writing along when all of a sudden Pandora turned up a musician I’d never heard before and I fell in love.
I almost never find musicians I love, but Gabriel Kahane is amazing. He’s sort of like Stephen Sondheim and Jason Robert Brown (who, I just learned by looking him up, apparently has a seriously gorgeous Jewish nose) presented as vaguely pop* music.
His instrumentation is stunning and I love the complex melodies. I almost didn’t pay attention to his lyrics until I happened upon his epic aria about the plight of a man who cannot find a roommate because of his compulsion to put ice cubes down people’s shirts.
I have a compulsion to put ice cubes down people’s shirts. As my roommate, you will likely bear the brunt of this problem. Don’t ask me why I do this. Why do I do this? Why do I do this? Years of therapy hasn’t helped. Hasn’t helped. Hasn’t heeeeeelped.
Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii always have ice cubes on hand. Don’t think you can simply get rid of all the ice trays in the apartment. All the ice trays! All the ice trays!
Trust me, I have tried this. I will only buy more! I will only buy more! I will ooooooooooooooonly buuuuuuuuy moooooooore!
Really — gorgeous music *and* humor? I swoon for this music.
You, too, can listen for free online.
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*Note: my definition of “pop” means “written for enjoyment as individual songs.” As opposed to “part of a musical.” When I was in college, I complained over and over again to my friend Tim Jones-Yelvington that I couldn’t get into songs that weren’t part of a story. I thought my problem was unique until Tim’s boyfriend — a lyricist and playwright studying at NYU — revealed he had the same problem. I’ve gotten over it since, by dint of musicians like Poe (whose album Haunted is a musical response to her brother’s amazing experimental novel House of Leaves) and the Dresden Dolls (whose song “Coin-Operated Boy” is a perfect science fiction short story in three minutes).
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ETA: Why did I not previously notice that this song is on an album called “Craigslistleider?” That’s seriously fucking brilliant. So, for instance, another song in the cycle is “I have one pair of slightly used assless chaps in size 42. Will trade for spiderman comics. Will trade for spiderman comics. Will trade for spiderman comics or equivalent.” Set to disjunctively serious music. Awesome.
Cragislistleider!!!!
Brilliant.
He’s in Brooklyn writing musicals. He might know Frankie…
WTF ever happened to Frankie? Perhaps public blog is not the place to discuss!
Google expands tracking to logged out users
http://joshfulton.blogspot.com/2009/12/google-expands-tracking-to-logged-out.html
Not an open thread, Josh.
He’s good, he’s on facebook. I don’t know the exact sequence of events, but he taught English in Kenya, taught english at a high school in Brooklyn for a while, did the musical theater grad program at NYU, would appear to now be working in expository writing department at NYU and at playwrights horizons, and is still writing/composing, etc. He has a nice-looking partner-boyfriend named Tripp and a small grey dog.
Having now listened to Craigslistlieder several times, I would say that this particular piece accomplishes some of the same things as really good formalist fiction. Poker-faced absurdity that is at once hilarious, poignant and obscene.
Yeah, absolutely. The disjunction between the content and the tone is really funny. And of course it also achieves music that’s a joy to listen to as music which is a whole other plane beyond the experimental aims. It’s really nice to have both.