Writer: Gabby Reagan
Editor: Eric Vilas-Boas
Top Editor: Jill Feigelman
Word Count: 947
Hey Obbie, sorry for the confusion. Here’s all the RFO reviews
EVB
OLD: 265
My dad loved the blues, so car rides as a girl left me submerged in B.B. King, Muddy
Waters, and Etta James. Listening to the Shuggie Otis’s soulful Freedom Flight isn’t
much different. A’70s musical prodigy born Johnny Otis Junior in 1953, he
surprisingly remains an obscure figure, despite composing and arranging the
excellent Freedom Flight when he was 18.
Otis’s fretwork rips through opener “Ice Cold Daydream,” his sun-drenched,
laid-back voice balancing the track. He keeps it grooving on the second track,
“Strawberry Letter 23,” known for its smoothed-out cover by The Brothers Johnson.
The track “Sweet Thang” is the most conflicting. Otis on slide guitar filters in one ear
as a church organ plays flows into the other, the stereo contrast establishing an
inherent battle between good and evil with a swaying, bayou feel.
He turns it around with the track, “Someone’s Always Singing.” The heartfelt
lyrics are relatable, and tease the album’s theme: “If I want to fly away or if I want to
stay. I just want to be myself and live from day to day.”
The album comes to a close on title track, “Freedom Flight.” The instrumental
— a melodic lullaby of sultry guitar riffs, rising and falling swells of echo-y tenor sax
that, and a shimmering, omnipresent wind chimes — falls just short of 13 minutes.
With just two minutes left, the record’s final drumming picks up alongside a breezy
saxophone. Despite the lack of lyrics, the sax, the drums, and the wind chimes carry
the listener to freedom, flying from despair. And taking me back to those car rides.
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CD: 270
Collaborations usually work when the different artists’ genres are at least related,
but on the EP Beak & Claw folk singer Sufjan Stevens joined with an unlikely pair:
composer Son Lux, and Chicago rapper Serengeti. Stevens had worked with
electronica composer Son Lux before, but Serengeti came from a genre Stevens had
never tapped.
But with the exception of anti-funny throwaway “Octomom,” the four-song EP
sounds great.Over Lux’s strung-out beats, Serengeti raps in monotone about a
media-seeking mother with eight kids and a tabloid obsession, but the song’s clichés
and lack of emotion beg the question: why listen? “I had the night of my life,” the
track refrains. Upon hearing this one, you will not.
The first single, “Museum Day” offers an eclectic mix of Stevens’ Auto-Tuned voice
over repeated cymbal crashes and sporadic lines from Serengeti like, “Thousands of
recorded songs / Psalms that could have made us calm.” And the rapper delivers
lines just as moving on the song “Beyond Any Doubt.”
Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond lends her high-pitched singing to the
techno-heavy track “If This Is Real.”On it Serengeti’s raps shift, as he dons an
alternate persona (recognizable to fans of his album Dennehy), a married man with
an obsession with the Chicago Bears. The flourish veers away from the rest of the
EP, but it works.
We saw Stevens attempt to stray away from his folk-singing roots and toward the
annals of pop-techno on his last album “The Age of Adz.” This album is another step
on that Auto-Tuned path, Auto-Tune included. As far as this album goes, three out of
four isn’t bad.
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BOOK: 406
It seems that Last Stop This Town by David H. Steinberg must be in
competition for the “Novel That Can Use the Most Sex Jokes, Breast Descriptions,
and Over-the-Top Teen Revelry” prize. The book follows the debaucherous saga of
four boys on the brink of high school graduation. They have one weekend to go out
with a bang. It reads like The Hangover, with peach-fuzz and bigger heart. Or like
American Pie with an extra helping of mushiness. Surprise, surprise: Steinberg
actually wrote American Pie 2 and American Pie Presents: Book of Love. This novel
attempts to reconcile Steinberg’s signature raunch with his soft side.
Each of the four main characters fits neatly into his own slot: Walker, the nice guy
who respects women (and thus has no game); Pike, the unapologetic pothead; Noah,
the brainiac wingman; and golden boy Dylan, the leader of the pack with Zac Efron
looks and an endless supply of one-liners. The guys’ personalities gel perfectly in
sync as they always seem to in Hollywood or popular teen lit.
While the writing and humor target the horny teen male demographic, there are a
few scenes so vividly, so enjoyably absurd that any reader can appreciate them. An
insane homeless man seeks revenge on the boys by reaching into his pants and
slinging hunks of his own shit at the windshield of their car. A marijuana-fueled Pike
decides to play Jedi Knight, substituting a lightsaber with a chainsaw, and
demolishing a couch (which he later needs to pay for with a brick of weed… of
course). Noah and Dylan sneak into a towing facility in the trunk of Chevy Malibu.
It’s the Goonies all grown up.
But amidst the moments of pure gold, prepare to slog through a string of gratingly
insane antics, indelicate over-sentimentality about high school yearbooks, and a
gratuitous use of the word “pussy.” Characters become dewy-eyed at predictable
moments, and for every scene where one of the crew is about to get laid, there’s
another where one of them realizes why, gosh, best friends are the best. Steinberg
writes situations he can cue sappy string interludes to.
By the end, though, Last Stop This Town is fun. Don’t pick it up this book because you
want it to change your perspective or take you somewhere new. Read it if you're
craving a nostalgic roller-coaster ride through teenage hijinks. You know, the ones
you probably never quite had yourself.
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