Monday, June 9, 2014

Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger: Midnight Sun / RJ Cooper: Lock Stock andBarrel / Saga: Vol. 1

We're going to different worlds in this entry. Outer Space, the southern United States and the fantasy worlds of Sean Lennon's imagination may not have a heck of a lot in common but their products sure to make for a great evening.

Midnight Sun
Chimera Records

Sean Lennon could garner plenty of notoriety just by using his own name. Whether his music was good or complete shite there are folks out there who would love him simply because he's the offspring of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I personally could not care less who his parents are but I applaud him for moving on from using his name and starting The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger with his girlfriend Charolette Kemp Muhl. While they are the only two permanent members of the band there are a lot of "guest" musicians on the album and their current tour includes 3 other band members I'm pretty sure. Sean's solo stuff was decent but The GOASTT is far more interesting and fleshed out endeavor. The GOASTT takes his singer songwriter tendencies and amps them up with a touch of the the Austin TX psyche sound and the lush dreamy pop tendencies of Soft Bulletin era Flaming Lips. Of course there is some Magical Mystery Tour warbling strangeness and interesting instrumentation as well. I mean let's face it, most everything that's in a poppy psychedelic realm is based on Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Sean's got it in his genes, the boy can't help it, and damnit why should he, it sounds good. 

While most of the album is on the mellower side, it kicks off with a rocker. The organ heavy, drum thumping "Too Deep" lets you know that this is a full band project and not a folksy duo. The album will get consistently mellower as it moves on but the opening track does make a big statement. The second track "Xanadu" is still up beat and most certainly a rock tune but not quite as dense and guitar driven as the opener. The super layered harmonized vocals on the chorus break the song up expertly and move it along while stringing together pieces that may not have meshed otherwise. "Animals", the first single on the album, starts the real mellowing of the record. Still at mid-tempo, the motion of the the song is much more more of a sway than a nod. Even the louder choruses are more washed out with reverb and cymbals which keeps them mellow rather than bringing the song to a "heavier" place. Anything from this point on that is a little bit more up beat has more of a 60's pop/underground soul feel than rock. No matter how mellow the album get's though, it remains soaked psychedelia from all decades. With the 60's Beatles-esque vocal effects and varied instrumentation, 70's Pink Floydian reverbed out organ and slow slide guitar passages, 80's synth warble, 90's shoegaze wall of sound and the 00's layered boy/girl vocal harmonies and deep cave reverb, Sean runs the gamut and shows he's been learning from far more than his parents. It's all there and it's all used in the right places. Midnight sun is almost symphonic in how grandiose it is. There are some strings and horns but it's really more about how layered and large everything sounds. This is how the Flaming Lips comparison makes the most sense. No matter how poppy and silly something may be at it's base, the whole comes off as extremely important, but never "self-important". This is music that comes from the far reaches of the mind and as such it cannot help but become bigger and more fantastic as it's brought to life. This is easy to sit back and listen to and be swept away by.  Midnight Sun has a very good shot of making it into my personal Top 10 Albums of 2014.



RJ Cooper & Son
Lock Stock & Barrel
Straight Rye Whiskey
50.65% ABV Aged 13 Years

Also easy to be swept away by is this rare bottle of rye whiskey I was lucky enough to find the other day. I had a nip of this whiskey at the Plan B in Glastonbury CT some months ago. I was told then that it was a rare bottle and I would more than likely not be able to find it in liquor stores. I have to tell you that I was pretty bummed by the idea of that. Rye is my favorite type of whiskey and to find one that's 100% rye malts and aged for 13 years is a big deal so of course I wanted to have a bottle for the house. So when I did find a lone bottle on the shelf of one of my local liquor stores I grabbed it before I even looked at the price. I will tell you now that this is the most expensive bottle I've ever bought. At somewhere around $130.00 this is more of an investment than a beverage. This is a special occassion/lock it away when your friends are around kind of whiskey. I hate to say that because I enjoy drinking with friends but I will not risk even an once of this on the off chance it's not enjoyed fully. 

The color is a reddish amber and very clean. The nose is very deep with oak, it smells as though you just cut the tree to the center only seconds ago, like the tree was almost still alive. There is also a very slight sting of alcohol at the end of the nose, but only just enough to remind you that you're not standing in the middle of the forest. As with a number of good rye whiskeys the body of whiskey is thinner than a bourbon and slightly oily in that it will cote the inside of you mouth. The taste starts as a sweet smoke. The sweetness is in the vanilla notes from the wood and a bit of caramel from the malt bill. The char from the barrels adds some smoke to the mix and a bit of sharper tobacco flavor sneaks in. The finish is a huge burst of spice that rye is famous for. Hints of cinnamon, and clove as well as a slight alcohol sting at the finish make this the most well rounded and interesting whiskey I've ever had. It will leave you with a great warm glow without any true burn to it. The bottle suggests a single ice cube and a splash of spring water with 2 oz of Lock Stock & Barrel for prime enjoyment but after drinking 3oz straight I don't know if you could make it better. 




Saga Vol. 1
Author: Brian K. Vaughn
Artist: Fiona Staples
Image Comics

If you haven't heard about Saga yet then you're behind the times in comics. I'm still behind the times in comics and I have made it a point to know Saga. I don't mind telling you that I was pulled back into comics, at least in part, because of the things I read about Saga. It is a book that is putting Image Comics at the top of the heap for "mature reader" comics. The story is simple in it's premise but complex in it's execution. The beyond simple explanation would be, Star Wars meets Romeo and Juliet as seen through the eyes of Romeo and Juliet's alien love child. Simple right? Forbidden love and space aliens at war. 

There are two races of alien at war and a male and female from either side fall in love and have a child that both sides want to kill (or at the very least study, because that's not supposed to be able to work). Sounds like a tale as old as the hills but it still works when you write it correctly. In just this first volume you're getting 4 different perspectives on the same storyline, the parents, a bounty hunter, a general and the child, (who narrates the story). So the cats out of the bag whether or not the kid makes it through to the end but that's never really the issue. Saga is about how they manage to make it. To me, all the best stories tell you the outcome but are able to keep you hooked in with what leads up to it. Characters absolutely spill out over the side of this story and all of them are mostly likeable to an extreme degree, (if not only just slightly). They all come standard with a sense of humor, a little bit of a moral code, and none of them are really loners, so you know that there are other people on their side, their not just crazy people. The war that creates the basis for Saga to happen started so long ago that no one really knows why it started, let alone who started it, but the fighting has now spread throughout the entire universe and this pretty much means that no matter why it started both sides are now wrong. The "Freelancers" and soders are just doing their jobs, and even if you may find those jobs deplorable, they have become (in this universe anyway) actual legal career choices so it's hard to fault someone for have a career. The scope of this book is also huge, the worlds traveled on, the huminoid and non humanoid creatures within these worlds are also overly abundant. They also range from creative and bizarre to down right normal, but all are fleshed out and explained to a certain degree. Nothing is added in for eye candy here, there are no cantina scenes filled with a bunch of strange looking, unexplained characters. They are all also drawn well enough to be noticed as different from one another but none look out of place. The artistic style is very rounded, there are no sharp edges here, everything seems smooth and easy to digest. The colors are also muted and often pastelish. There's detail and great visuals but Fiona Staples makes them all easy to process and never makes you strain. I cannot say enough about the scope and the ability to pull you in that this book has. There is action, adventure, humor, love, hate and despite the fact that all the characters aren't "human" the book oozes humanity. A worth while and compelling read for anyone that's into comics, storytelling or just casual reading.