Archie has an official podcast. It’s hosted by a young man whose physique, manner and stripey shirts are reminiscent of the querulous boy Bruce MacDonald used to play on Kids in the Hall.
The podcast is nearly 150 episodes old, but has only recently—eight or nine episodes ago—been designated the “official” Archie podcast.
The podcasts are basically news-based, structured around new releases and special announcements (like the new Archie #1 and the revamped Kevin Keller). There’s not a lot said about the content of the books: no reviews, just an airing of the main credits (“…with a cover by Fernando Ruiz….”).
More authoritative Archie analysis would be appreciated.
Monthly Archives: January 2015
For Tomorrow We Shall Die: Diary of a College Chum #265:
We are most of the club—the guy who runs it was ecstatic to have us.
Scribblers Music Review
Savant, Zion. Ferocious 75 minutes of samples and concepts, keenly and leisurely developed by ace mixer Aleksander Vinter (aka Savant). Zion’s separated into 16 songs, but I’ve heard it several times through and appreciate it most as a cohesive album-length suite. A lot of it is dance-friendly electro/dubstep stuff, but I don’t dance and find it great background music to write to. Middle Eastern sounds rise up in Zion regularly (sometimes very cleverly, as in “Shazam”), and the beats are generally very frisky, but my favorite bit is probably “Outcasts,” a slowish soul scream right in the middle of the thing. It reminds me of the magic performed with a short sample of The Beatles’ “Yesterday” on his 75 minute Underground mixtape.
Rock Punctuation
, : “I don’t want to meet your momma. I just want to make you comma.” (Outkast, “Hey Ya.”)
? : Question Mark & the Mysterians (“96 Tears”)
! : “Overused like an exclamation point” (Latryx, “Exclamation Point”)
; : “A comma and a fucking dot; semicolon” (The Lonely Island, “Semicolon”)
‘ : “Apostrophe,” Frank Zappa.
“ : “Like the sailor said, quote, ‘Ain’t that a hole in the boat?’” (Dean Martin, “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head?”)
: : Javier Colon.
Rock Gods #314: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene
The extra “o” in Wooods stands for Lake O, the band has revealed. Not loudly revealed, mind you—Wooods are of the whisperpop movement, which plays as softly as possible, for audiences who are just as quiet. The band of the lake (Lake Olympus to its 18th century discoverers; “Lake O” to hordes of hikers since) is their favorite stage. Applause is signified by sign language; not even fingersnapping is allowed. “We don’t want to just evoke nature in our music,” leader Simon Magrey suggests. “We want to be a part of nature.”
As you may have guessed, flutes and whistles are involved, augmenting the breezes and birdcalls in the wilderness. But there are guitars too—homemade lyres, to be precise. Rocks and sticks provide percussion.
Wooods’ line-up changes like the seasons, but neither is the band a loose collective or community drum circle. Magrey, his romantic partner Pri Lincoln and their roommate Marc Rutherfurd are sustaining members in a band that can sometimes grow to eight members without ever getting loud. Lincoln was a champion birdcaller in high schooler, so she handles the vocals. “I think of them as lyrics,” she says. “It’s just not in a language we understand.”
Tonight: The Orijens at The Bullfinch with the “raw ukulele” act Uke-anuba… Spratt’s Solid Gold at Hamilton’s, a post-holiday dance party… An Evening With Essential Foods at D’ollaire’s, with the local duo AvoDerm (Sue Avon and Jim J. Dermott) opening. AvoDerm just got signed to an indie label in Wisconsin, while one-hit wonders Essential Foods have been label-less for a couple of years. One going up, the other heading down…
The Riverdale Book Review
The Art of Casper Jim
Archie Andrews generally lives in a Mad Magazine-like mirror world of parody. The same celebrities and institutions exist in Riverdale that you can find in the world at large. They just have funnier names.
In the story “The Swing of Things,” Archie’s dad, Fred, listens to “Benny Badman” rather than Benny Goodman records , which Archie thinks are better than the “awfully repetitious” videos on “NTV.”
In “The Champ of Camp,” Mr. Lodge collects pop art masterpieces by “Sandy Airhole” and “Casper Jim.”
In “The Hot ‘70s,” Jughead learns to dance like “John Revolta.”
Yet decades before those other stories, in the 1945 “Junk for a Junket,” Archie gives a one cent tip on a $15 restaurant bill, and the waiter responds “Thanks, Meestaire Benny”—a real world, non soundalike reference to noted radio cheapskate Jack Benny.
For Tomorrow We Shall Die: Diary of a College Chum #264:
We saw a squib in the paper and have decided to join a club.
Scribblers Music Review
RONiiA, “Fool’s Game.” This is one of those songs that has enough ideas in it to be a full album. It’s a cool collaboration among Nona Marie Invie of Dark Dark Dark, Mark McGee of Marijuana Deathsquad and Fletcher Barnhill of Joint Custody. Slow and droney without being willfully arch or antagonistic, “Fool’s Game” is a nightmarishly dream spun from chirps, thumps and ethereal (yet low and human) vocals. It gets dense, yet still floats. Real 3 a.m. contemplative stuff. Wish it were 20 minutes long instead of five.
http://www.wonderingsound.com/song-premiere-roniia/
January 5, 2015
Magic number: 06925
Magic word: Jambo
Ten January Songs
Billy Bragg, “January Song”: “Turn around and taste tomorrow, this is where the end begins.”
The Decemberists, “January Hymn”
Gilbert O’Sullivan, “January Girl”
Goo Goo Dolls, “January Friend”
Pilot, “January.” (Yep, the “wo-ho-ho it’s magic” band.)
Elton John, “January”
Tori Amos, “Black Dove (January)”
Barbara Dickson, “January February.” Scottish Streisandian pop singer.
Jill Sobule, “Manhattan in January” (a protest song about global warming)
The Twilight Sad, “Last January.”
There’s also this poem, “One Third of the Calendar,” by Ogden Nash:
In January everything freezes.
We have two children. Both are she’ses.
This is our January rule:
One girl in bed, and one in school.
In February the blizzard whirls.
We own a pair of little girls.
Blessings upon of each the head—
The one in school and the one in bed.
March is the month of cringe and bluster.
Each of our children has a sister.
They cling together like Hansel and Gretel,
With their noses glued to the benzoin kettle.
April is made of impetuous waters
And doctors looking down throats of daughters.
If we had a son too, and a thoroughbred,
We’d have a horse,
And a boy,
And two girls
In bed.