Dreamers Rise
An Open Notebook
And for those who choose the twisty road, prefer it to the straight
Let joy beat out old misery, as love will conquer hate.
 Illustration by Henry L. Stephens from The Goblin Snob (ca. 1855) | |||||
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A sort of electronic broadside, composed of rants and reviews, conceits and speculations, and whatever else feels the need to be here. Issued as chance will have it. Sharks, pretty voices etc. For some reason the books I've been reading seem to be getting exponentially shorter of late; hope that's not an ominous sign. I've just received two chapbooks issued by Payseur & Schmidt, a small press in Seattle owned and operated (as far as I can determine) by Jacob McMurray and Therese Littleton. (On their website, it's stated that the press “was founded in Cauheegan, Wisconsin in 1912 by Martina Faye Payseur and Hilde Frauke Schmidt,” but take that with a grain of salt.) The first, Cuckoo's Nest: An Experiment of Dubious Worth, was issued in conjunction with an art exhibit held at a Seattle gallery last year. According to Payseur & Schmidt, it “explores the creative possibilities of advertising through an archaeological lens of 21st century Seattle material culture.” It presents a half-dozen “exhibits” purportedly discovered during the excavation of the ruins of the summer residence of one Sir Richard Hugo, a “captain of industry” who lived in “Seatac” in “northern Cascadia,” i.e. what is now the Pacific Northwest, in the early 15th century (sic). According to the droll prefatory essay: The artifacts uncovered so far form a clear picture of Seatac life in the 1440s — tropical summers, sub-zero winters, the mammoth as the primary locomotive force, divine even-toed ungulate visitations, and civil wars between the land-bound natives and the fish-folk of the nearby sea — visions not so diferent from what we experience today.With the exception of a ouija board, each of the exhibits consists of a mock advertisement: for a mermaid with two heads, a Civil War ice skating spectacle, and so on. One of the exhibits is replaced by a placard indicating that the artifact is “currently in conservation.” The mini-essays that accompany the exhibits, penned by a variety of writers none of whom are known to me, are as amusing as the advertisements themselves. The chapbook is handsomely printed and costs just $6 plus shipping, but only 50 were printed, so if you're interested don't delay. Also from Payseur & Schmidt is Therese Littleton's Teeth, a refreshingly odd story about a woman who undergoes some sort of medical / genetic modification that transforms her into an semi-aquatic creature, half human and half shark. The book is illustrated with depictions of several species of shark, some snippets of text from a scientific paper, and what I believe is a Grandville caricature, showing two sharks done up as medical doctors. A real shark's tooth, dangling from a ribbon marker, is included in each copy. 
As this publicity photo suggests, Jenny Owen Youngs (not to be confused with the former lead singer of the Youngbloods) is a young singer and musician with a bit of a shark obsession of her own. Though she's actually in her mid-twenties, she likes to kit herself out in a tie, plaid skirt, and white blouse, as if she were a preppie field-hockey player half her age (which may be her demographic anyway, bus on occasion advertised herself as “the other white meat.” She also likes to be silly.None of which would be of any great interest if she couldn't sing, but she's actually quite good, to my ears a bit like a flakier, girlier version of Madeline Peyroux, though other people (including Youngs herself) have mentioned affinities ranging from Nick Drake to Erin McKeown and Liz Phair. And while her songs, at least the ones I've heard thus far, are pretty much standard self-absorbed twenty-something fare, at least one of them, “Fuck Was I,” is pretty infectious: Love grows in me like a tumorI haven't heard her 2005 debut album, Batten the Hatches, which was recently pulled off the market in advance of an impending re-release, but I did get hold of a copy of her EP, The Scrappy Demo, which contains earlier versions of some of the same material. The Batten the Hatches version of “Fuck Was I,” which is available online (mp3), features a nice cello part instead of the fairly cheesy keyboard accompaniment of the demo. (Incidentally, the jailbait look may be wearing thin, as recently Youngs has been posting pictures of herself wearing jeans.) Teddy Thompson is another youngish singer with a terrific voice and an increasing reputation. He also has an impressive musical pedigree, as the son of songwriter and guitarist Richard Thompson, one of the most important and original musicians of the last forty years, and of Linda Thompson, one of the era's most distinctive singers (the couple are long divorced). I have mixed feelings about his new record, which is called Separate Ways. Teddy certainly steps out of the shadow of his parents and proves his mettle as a performer; listen to him, for instance, on the first verse of “Altered State.” I'm less sure about his abilities as a songwriter. On first listen the songs sound pretty good, but there isn't much to them; he certainly doesn't appear to have his father's genius for lyrics. After listening to Separate Ways for about a week I found I was getting pretty tired of it. Both Richard and Linda appear on the record, separately I think, along with banjo whiz Tony Trischka and several frischka and several fellow second-generation folkies, among them Rufus and Martha Wainwright and Jenni Muldaur. The best cut may be the hidden track, a duet with his mother on “Take A Message to Mary,” an old Everly Brothers tune (written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant). Kitschy as the song is, it has the kind of wit and pop songwriting flair that Teddy Thompson doesn't seem to have mastered, at least at this point in his career. March 11, 2007 [ Permalink ]
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