When you’re the bassist for Real Estate, one of the most amiable indie-rock outfits of recent times, what do you do as a solo artist? You make something just as pleasantly enjoyable, judging by Alex Bleeker’s first solo album in six years. This is to do Heaven on a Faultline a disservice though, as it’s a collection of homespun sounds that signal Bleeker’s intent to remember the music that made him fall in love with the form in the first place. So what we get is jangling indie-rock reminiscent of fellow New Jersey-ites Yo La Tengo crossed with country folk that honours Neil Young.
And homespun wasn’t used as a mere descriptor here: Bleeker initially made the album in his bedroom, actually finishing it in January 2020 before the world was set alight. After watching Real Estate’s fifth album come out last February and being swallowed by the onrushing COVID-19 pandemic, spending the remainder of that year trying to connect with fans in any way they could, his solo effort has finally seen the light of day.
Given that this was essentially a record for Bleeker himself to explore his music roots, it’s testament to the quality of the songs that they connect to another listener at all. It serves as a warm and gentle amble through his music history, full of grooving bass and twanging guitar. Tonally pleasant tracks like the jangly instrumental ‘AB Ripoff’ and the meandering ‘Swang’ abound. The melodies, simple yet memorable, come to Bleeker with an apparent effortlessness, as on the vintage-tinted ‘Mashed Potatoes’ or the swaying ‘La La La’. The only outlier is the dirty and groovy psychedelic track ‘Heavy Tupper’.
Heaven on a Faultline is an album of transitions. Lyrically, Bleeker deals with the anxieties of a changing world: ‘D Plus’ may contain chiming guitars but it was written on the day of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration; the jaunty ‘Felty Feel’ sees him considering climate change and his feeling of powerlessness in the face of it, marking the juxtaposition of bleak words and upbeat rhythms with a certain passivity: “Let’s just not talk about it/ Seriously what’s the use/ Don’t mean to be a downer/ But there’s nothing I can do.”
Bleeker also uses the album as a way of processing his geographical roots. The double hit of ‘Tamalpais’ (itself a peak in California) and ‘Twang’ are his musings on leaving behind the East Coast for California; “I can’t find the rhythm,” he sighs on the latter. He ends the album with ‘Lonesome Call’, a cry from the dust bowl, a sweet acoustic folk number. Bleeker appears to be a man stuck between places and feelings: “You had a 20th century style but it’s the 21st century now,” he says to a character in ‘Mashed Potatoes’, but it could easily be a remark tossed his own way. Yet it shouldn’t be any other way: as music increasingly moves towards post-genre chaos, a gentle reminder of the qualities of the former century’s finest musical styles is welcome. Bleeker may never make a record that is overpowering, but what this little collection of guitar highlights does do is make you want to retreat to your own room and record with the instrument immediately.
Bill Melendez’s 1969 animated film A Boy Named Charlie Brown is among the titles that immediately come to mind when I think of movies that left a significant impact on me.
I discovered the Charles M. Schulz comic strip Peanuts as a teenager, previously knowing it only by reputation: as the antecedent of holiday cartoons like A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966). I’d enjoyed those shows but had only seen them a handful of times, perhaps because I wasn’t old enough to fully appreciate the precocious nature of their characters (I was too young to understand what Lucy van Pelt meant in telling Charlie Brown that Christmas is “run by a big eastern syndicate” or grasp the humor in such a statement being enunciated by children less than ten years of age). In fact, my most personal connection to Peanuts back then was a trip to Schulz’s birthplace—Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA—in the winter of 2000. Although I was there to visit relatives, what remains most vivid in my memory is the dozens of Charlie Brown statues peppered throughout the city in Schulz’s honor. (The cartoonist had died earlier that year.)
Nine years pass; I’m now months away from graduating high school. Opening the newspaper one morning, I come upon the following four-panel gag in the funny pages: Lucy and her younger brother Linus stand at a window, watching a torrential downpour; Linus remarks that he’s glad to be indoors; Lucy proclaims “only a real blockhead” would go out on a day like this; cut to Charlie Brown standing on his pitcher’s mound. “Where is everybody?” he asks. [1] Instantly captivated, I began hunting down anything and everything Peanuts-related that my adolescent self could afford; and when I learned about four feature-length movies released between the years 1969-1980, I became determined to see them. [2]
A Boy Named Charlie Brown was the first of the four, made when the animated television specials were still a relatively new phenomenon. According to Charles Solomon’s book The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation: Celebrating Fifty Years of Television Specials, Schulz, director Melendez, and producer Lee Mendelson first discussed the idea of a feature-length movie in 1965 but didn’t get far due to doubt amongst themselves that they could pull off such an undertaking—and because no distributors were interested in the project. [3] By 1967, however, the media climate had changed, and audiences were hungrily devouring Peanuts merchandise in every form. Television ratings for the half-hour specials were excellent; the musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown was a recent success on Broadway; publishing house Holt, Rinehart & Winston had sold more than eight million dollars of Peanuts books; and the success of jazz musician/composer Vince Guaraldi’s Peanuts-themed albums further demonstrated the impact Charlie Brown had had on mainstream consumers. [4] With the timing perfect for Schulz’s characters to migrate to the big screen, producer Mendelson landed a contract with CBS’s newly formed motion picture company, Cinema Center Films; and on December 5, 1969, after nearly two years of production, A Boy Named Charlie Brown premiered at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.
Despite playing on a single screen for most of December, the first Peanuts movie earned $60,000 on its first Saturday and $290,000 during its second week. [5] Occupying the number one spot in box office charts until the stateside release of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Charlie Brown drew favorable reviews epitomized by the New York Times’s Vincent Canby: “[I]t’s difficult—perhaps impossible—to be anything except benign towards a G-rated, animated movie that manages to include references to St. Stephen, Thomas Eakins, Harpers Ferry, baseball, contemporary morality (as it relates to Charlie Brown’s use of his “bean ball”), conservation and kite flying.” [6]
Four decades after its initial release, the film gave me, a burgeoning Peanuts fan, exactly what I wanted. As indicated in Canby’s description, it’d successfully preserved what made the comic special to begin with; it was also a triumph cinematically, packed with stunning visuals and supplemented by an outstanding musical score. But the film had also given me something I hadn’t quite expected. After watching Charlie Brown’s silver screen debut, I was convinced I’d seen one of the great American movies about a subject rarely portrayed so honestly and inspiringly in a motion picture. A subject perfectly summarized in this statement from Pixar animator Jeff Pidgeon: “A Boy Named Charlie Brown is about how to confront failure, and how you can work really hard […] and still keep going if you lose.” [7]
A recurring theme in the comic strip was Charlie Brown’s ill-fated attempts at proving himself: his inability to win a baseball game, to fly a kite, to kick the football from under Lucy’s hand (before she pulls it away and sends him sailing through the air). Such scenes appeared in the television specials and they appear once again in A Boy Named Charlie Brown but are this time used to accentuate a character-driven narrative. In the picture’s opening sequences, Charlie Brown watches his kite fall repeatedly to the ground, until his anthropomorphic beagle Snoopy manages to keep it airborne while sleeping! Once again, his baseball team is mercilessly defeated in a game. Once again, he unwisely visits Lucy’s “psychiatry booth,” subjected to a slideshow demonstrating his faults, furthermore baited into her football prank again; and there’s a bonus: she had a camera set up, meaning he gets to see his latest failure on instant replay! As we follow these familiar pratfalls, in voiceover Charlie Brown talks about how “nothing ever seems to go right” for him and how he’s become so discouraged he “can hardly stand it.” And then, his quest for accomplishment, propelled by these early scenes, takes him on a new journey, where he’ll either become a hero or make a bigger fool of himself than ever.
The screenplay, written by Schulz, recycles part of a narrative created for a February 1966 series of strips, wherein Charlie Brown entered his school’s spelling bee. Except rather than strike out on the first round (misspelling “maze” as “M – A – Y – S,” as in baseball player Willie Mays), he wins the contest—amusingly by spelling words indicative of his own character (“failure,” “insecure”). And just when he’s finally regained self-esteem, he’s sent to a national competition in New York, with all his friends expecting (rather, demanding) he return the champion. Bill Melendez’s direction, heretofore alternately whimsical and melancholy, takes a turn for the suspenseful as Charlie Brown wades through the competition, still spelling words familiar to his own life such as“incompetent” and, to Lucy’s bewilderment, “fussbudget.” Allowing the scene to go on without music, Melendez heightens tension until Charlie Brown’s one of only two contestants left. And then our protagonist embarrassingly misspells the word “beagle” (“B – E – A – G – E – L”).
What follows is one of the most hauntingly beautiful sequences in animation. Melendez and Schulz discard dialogue almost entirely as Charlie Brown returns to his neighborhood, with no one waiting to greet him, and somberly goes home and climbs into bed. He kicks off one of his shoes, trying to get it to land upright on the floor, but it tips over—yet another failure—and he remains under the covers until Linus arrives to check on him the next afternoon. (Turns out, the kids had a ballgame after school, and they won. This is faithful to the strip: Charlie Brown’s team typically emerged victorious whenever he didn’t play.) Recognizing and understanding his friend’s depression, Linus then utters some of the most true and honest words that anybody who’s ever struggled with self-doubt should know themselves. After describing his friend’s latest failure, he says: “But did you notice something, Charlie Brown? The world didn’t come to an end.”
“The world didn’t come to an end.”
“Most movies are about winning,” Jeff Pidgeon remarked in describing A Boy Named Charlie Brown’s message. “If your heart’s in it, you’ll win. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to introduce the concept of failure to people: You’re not going to succeed at everything you do in life.” [8] Therein lies the brilliance of this movie, and what so tremendously impacted me when I saw it for the first time: it concludes not on a note of forced triumph or of unrelenting despair—but with an inspiring depiction of moving on. Charlie Brown takes Linus’s words to heart and ventures into the world again, jumping over the hopscotch markings on the sidewalk, watching his friends play about the neighborhood, realizing he still has his whole life to prove himself. Ending in this manner, with neither total victory nor total failure for its protagonist, A Boy Named Charlie Brown is perhaps the most noble film I’ve seen on the subject of self-doubt. And as someone who utterly lacked confidence and self-esteem for much of his own childhood, seeing this picture was something of a defining moment; its lesson is one I wish I’d learned earlier.
Of course, A Boy Named Charlie Brown has much to offer aside from its poignant story. Director Melendez and his team utilize the expanded budget to recreate memorable aspects from the comic strip and the half-hour shows, with greater panache than before. Example: the disastrous baseball game toward the beginning, which is rife with spectacular wide shots, movement of the camera, and split-screens showcasing events happening simultaneously in separate parts of the ballfield. (Namely Charlie Brown’s reactions as his teammates continuously fail to catch the ball.) Another highlight is Linus staggering through a dark, shadow-laden New York City in search of his beloved “security blanket.” As indicated, much of the film is heavily pictorial and, in a few instances, allows a break in the main story for extra-narrative interludes where music and visuals take over completely.
Schulz explained in a 1971 interview that he worried a feature-length movie focused solely on the misadventures of kids would become “wearisome”; so he came up with the basic idea of four vignettes before turning over details regarding execution to Melendez’s staff. “I did not attempt in any way to interfere with the animators,” he recalled. “I simply told them […] ‘You go ahead now and use your imagination, because you’re better at this that I am, and […] just let your minds run wild.’” [9] In addition to recycling Snoopy’s fantasy battle with the Red Baron from It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, the film sets animation to John Stafford Smith’s The Star-Spangled Banner and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata Pathétique, the former accompanied by flashing stripes and stars, the latter a collage of surrealistic illustrations depicting locations where Beethoven lived and worked. Snoopy gets a second interlude of his own: while skating at Rockefeller Center, he imagines himself in a hockey game (with live-action players rotoscoped behind him in the form of dashing, multi-colored silhouettes). Besides the final two sequences, which admittedly run a tad long for their own good, these vignettes function terrifically as set pieces and, despite lack of narrative importance, do not interrupt the picture’s momentum.
Snoopy scores at the Rockefeller Center.
Aiding the visuals is a marvelous score. Main composer Vince Guaraldi returns with several of the beloved tracks he’d conceived for the television specials and writes much of the new instrumental music. Augmenting his jazz are a few original compositions courtesy of John Scott Trotter. “It wasn’t that we thought Vince’s jazz couldn’t carry the movie,” Mendelson recalled, “but we wanted to supplement it with some ‘big screen music.’” [10] For this film, Trotter—who’d arranged, supervised, or conducted Guaraldi’s music for the television specials since 1966—contributed a handful of elaborate tracks (e.g., Linus hallucinating on the bus to New York) in addition to a few gentle ones (the soothing piece that opens the film), not to mention the song, ‘I’ Before ‘E’, for when Charlie Brown’s memorizing the spelling rule that’s always given him trouble.
Three more songs were supplied by Rod McKuen; and in what adds a sense of unity to the soundtrack, all three are carefully adapted into instrumental pieces by Guaraldi. “Vince would call and consult me about his variations on the songs for the background score,” McKuen recalled, “and I thought that was really generous. He didn’t have to do that; he didn’t have to use them as source material at all. But he felt that elaborating on the songs was part of his job.” [11] A non-vocal rendition of McKuen’s Champion Charlie Brown makes for a playful main title theme; and his central song, named after the movie itself, is brilliantly adapted for key scenes regarding the hero’s emotional journey. The score for A Boy Named Charlie Brown earned Guaraldi, Trotter, and McKuen a collective Academy Award nomination for Best Music (Original Song), though the group ultimately lost to The Beatles documentary Let It Be.
Voice acting in Peanuts animation has historically been hit-and-miss, the average cast consisting of a few good performances alongside some less-inspiring ones (a brasher-than-necessary Lucy; a Sally clearly uncomfortable with big words; a Charlie Brown who’s a tad too bland—indeed, such a thing is possible!). But the voicework in A Boy Named Charlie Brown is just shy of impeccable, nearly every character matched to the right voice. Most impressive is thirteen-year-old Peter Robbins in (release-wise) his final outing as Charlie Brown. [12] Robbins had played the character in all of his animated appearances thus far, developing the right tone that mixed determination with an element of doubt; his narrated monologues in this film are particularly moving. Also excellent is Pamelyn Ferdin, still the quintessential Lucy van Pelt for capturing a demanding personality without being overly strident. Supporting roles (Glenn Gilger as Linus; Sally Dryer as Patty; Lynda Mendelson as Frieda; Christopher DeFaria as Pig Pen) are well-cast.
The dramatis personae of A Boy Named Charlie Brown is also appealing in that it features characters destined to become less prominent in animation thereafter (due to Schulz simultaneously finding limited use for them in the strip). It is true that characters such as Shermy, Violet, Frieda, and Patty are not as memorable as, say, Schroeder or Lucy, and that they function primarily as what Schulz called “straight men”: mere responders to their more personality-packed friends. But as someone who’s always considered the ‘60s the best chapter in Peanuts’s fifty-year run, they are essential components in how I picture the world in which Charlie Brown lives; and their presence here adds to what makes this, in my sincere opinion, the consummate representation of Peanuts on the silver screen.
As mentioned at the top, A Boy Named Charlie Brown is a film of tremendous importance to me, in part because of its connection to my favorite comic strip, in part because of its message and the degree to which I can relate. At the risk of sounding sentimental—or “wishy-washy,” to quote Lucy—I am thankful to have this movie in my life, and in fact wish I’d come across it earlier. (Those last few words spoken by Linus might’ve been of immeasurable help during that time where I longed for self-esteem.) And for that reason especially, this gem from 1969 is the animated film that means the most to me, the one dearest to my heart.
References:
Schulz and Melendez recreated this specific gag in their second television special, Charlie Brown’s All Stars! (1966)
When I first discovered Peanuts circa 2009, there were only four movies based on the comic strip: 1969’s A Boy Named Charlie Brown; 1972’s Snoopy Come Home; 1977’s Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown; and 1980’s Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don’t Come Back!!). 2015’s The Peanuts Movie was still some years away.
Solomon, Charles. The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation: Celebrating Fifty Years of Television Specials. San Francisco: Chronicle Books LLC, pp. 28
Bang, Derrick. Liner notes for A Boy Named Charlie Brown soundtrack, Kritzerland Records, 2017
Ibid.
Canby, Vincent. “Screen: Good Old Charlie Brown Finds a Home.” The New York Times, 5 December 1969.
Liner notes for A Boy Named Charlie Brown soundtrack.
Ibid.
According to Pamelyn Ferdin, although A Boy Named Charlie Brown was released after the half-hour television special It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown (1969), voice work on the movie was finished first, making It Was a Short Summer Robbins’s final performance as Charlie Brown.
Towards the end of Adult Mom’s new album, in the middle of exposing the cracks in communication and general messiness that comes in the aftermath of a breakup, singer-songwriter Stevie Knipe sings of how “all of our guilt/ Is collectivized in ill-written iPhone notes.” You can hardly describe Knipe’s lyrics as “ill-written” – that line alone proves otherwise – but the diaristic, confessional nature of their writing means it’s easy to imagine the words first coming to life against that infamous light background, conceived less as a means of self-expression than mere self-preservation: letters to self that gently found their way into a song, or at least immortalized in the form of a tweet. And while the songs themselves are both witty and treated with care, it’s the imperfections that come with this brand of raw honesty that makes them so endearing.
None of these qualities have gone away on Driver, Knipe’s third LP as Adult Mom, which deploys a brighter and more expansive palette without sacrificing the project’s trademark intimacy. If anything, the album’s tasteful, breezy arrangements – whose most immediate reference point is the renewed openness of Waxahatchee’s Saint Cloud – only accentuate the warmth that Adult Mom’s music has exuded ever since 2015’s spare Momentary Lapse of Happily, coating even its most melancholy and uncomfortable sentiments in layers of self-aware irony and candor. The mood of the record might be better conveyedthroughmemes than a formal review, but I find the opening lines of ‘Checking Up’ to be aptly evocative: “Thick snow, I fall down in it slow/ I retreat to its pillow.” Knipe has a way of taking the cold, mundane realities of life and transmuting them into something lighter and almost soothing.
Driver is full of quotable lines, but quoting them doesn’t always reflect the effect they have in context or illustrate Knipe’s knack for poignant storytelling. Perhaps the most memorable one arrives on the album’s centerpiece, ‘Sober’: “The only thing that I’ve done/ This month is drink beer and masturbate, and ignore phone calls from you/ What else am I supposed to do.” But just as the song’s lo-fi, bedroom pop backdrop builds into something clearer and punchier, Knipe’s assured delivery guides the song to its expected yet cathartic conclusion: “Now I don’t even think of you when I am sober.” Part of the reason that line holds such emotional weight also has less to do with its wry humour than how Knipe sets it up a track earlier, depicting a scene where a stranger had given them and a friend a beer as evidence of a time when drinking was less a means of killing time than slowing it down. “I was just trying to get to know you,” they sing, letting the you fly from their mouth like a fond memory.
Knipe’s growth as a songwriter is palpable on Driver, their best and most fully-realized effort to date, and it resonates partly because that yearning for growth has been such a running theme throughout their discography. (“God, I can be so relentless/ But at least I’m not afraid anymore,” they admit on ‘Adam’, throwing in an “I think” for good measure.) But Knipe never alienates any potential new listeners, weaving a thread around seemingly disparate moments that may not add up to a coherent narrative but are tied to a particular place, or more often, the things that lead to it: “On the cusp of the state line/ New England to Westchester/ On the cusp of loving/ And resenting each other.” It’s no wonder driving plays such a recurring role on the album, less so for its obvious connotations than its ability to violently bring back memories. There are musical references ranging from Hole’s ‘Violet’ to ‘I Will Survive’, but Driver glides to its own rhythm. Knipe may not always disclose the full details of their destination, but they’re kind enough to save us a seat.
At just 23, Jess Smyth a.k.a. Biig Piig has already enjoyed a busy life, full of what she happily refers to as “mess.” She had a sociable childhood spent between Ireland, Costa Rica, and London, growing up around, and later working in, the restaurants, pubs, and bars run by her parents. It was following the family’s move to the UK when Smyth was 14 that she first picked up the guitar, and it wasn’t long before she was performing at open mic nights in Battersea and beyond. She found her crowd at college, when she became part of the collective NiNE8, a group of fashion, art, and music-loving teens brought together by artist Lava La Rue. The open-minded creative sessions with NiNE8 led Smyth to settle into her style and to collaborate with the collective’s producers to create her first official tracks. Softly rapping and singing in a mix of Spanish and English, Smyth put her own idiosyncratic spin on neo-soul, mixing hip-hop beats with lo-fi jazzy instrumentals, revealing intimate thoughts in a haze of chilled-out sonics and silky, sultry vocals.
She released her first (wonderfully named) EP, Big Fan of The Sesh, Vol. 1, in 2018, which features one of her biggest songs to date, ‘Perdida’, and has gone on to release two more, getting scooped up by RCA Records somewhere along the way. In 2020, her singles were imbued with a particularly energetic and confident quality, with tracks like ‘Switch’, ‘Don’t Turn Around’, and ‘Feels Right’ garnering widespread acclaim and reeling in new fans across the world. Now, following yet another move (this time to LA), Biig Piigis working hard on her debut album, dropping latest single ‘Cuenta Lo’ while gearing up for what we hope and pray will be an exciting festival-filled summer.
We caught up with Biig Piig for this edition of our Artist Spotlight Q&A series, where we showcase up-and-coming artists and give them a chance to talk about their music.
Something that first led me to your music was actually the name Biig Piig! Was that the intention when you locked in the name?
So initially, it was just a bit of a running joke. It was funny because it was the name of the pizza that me and my friend got after a night out. There wasn’t really much meaning to it, I just liked the way it sounded. And I was like, well, I’ll just do that, because I don’t think I ever wanted to use my name as my music name. But the more that I’ve had it and the more I thought about it – there’s certain meanings to it. I think I found that like, pigs are a lot smarter than they look and it lets me be a bit messy as well. I don’t feel like it pigeonholes me at all. Yeah, I don’t know; it all worked out.
Growing up you lived in Ireland, Spain, and London. What do you love most about each place, and do you feel more attached to any of them?
I feel like the sense of community that’s ingrained in the culture in all three places, really, that’s what I think I got attached to. And that’s what I think is really cool and just really beautiful. I think the way that people communicate and the way that friends and how much community matters in the three of those places that I lived in, really, really stays with me. I feel like I don’t really get attached to places. It’s more so I get attached to people and like emotionally, that’s kind of what I think makes a place rather than the actual place.
What are some of your early memories of listening to music?
There are different stages. I feel like I remember listening to Gabrielle when I was really young. My mum used to love her and it used to make her really happy. That was kind of when I discovered that music could really pull someone out of a bad place. It was like watching her sing that in the car when she was going through something really tough, and I feel like just to watch her kind of, like, light up with Gabrielle’s song ‘Sunshine’ … That was when I think I really understood the power of music. I remember listening to her quite a lot, and then when I was like 13 or whatever, I liked a lot of pop-punk and acoustic music and my taste was all over the shop… A lot of old school R&B. It was like – yeah, it was just a mess. And I don’t feel like there was one specific genre that I loved. I think it was just kind of anything that makes me feel good, or not, like songs that really make me feel… Something. But there’s a few different artists; Ben Harper, Bowling for Soup, Genuine – I used to listen to him a lot. Who else? Gabrielle and Van Morrison was played a lot, and Leonard Cohen.
How have you been during lockdown and how have you passed the time?
Lockdown has been a bit nuts. I moved so many times; it was a really hectic time for me. I was in a really intense relationship that ended during lockdown. We were living together and everything else – that was really intense. Creatively as well, I feel like I went through a period where I couldn’t really write anything and I felt really uninspired. And then after the first lockdown, I started to write a lot more and got really back into the swing of it. It felt so good. I think I’m still trying to process the whole of last year, just because my living situation kept falling apart. So I kept having to move loads and that relationship happened and then now I’m living in LA. I really like it and I’ve got a project that I’m really happy with, so it’s great. But yeah, definitely a very weird time. It almost feels like a dream. I feel like I’m looking back at it with such a hazy view because I don’t feel like time makes any sense. I think last year just feels like a whole… Vortex situation. It’s hard to remember details or anything, it’s nuts. But, passing the time, I watched a lot of really shit TV. I loved Selling Sunset. That really uh [laughs] that really kept me busy for a while. What else? Reading a bit? Reading and drinking, which I’m going to stop doing now. But drinking for the first one took up a lot of my time as well. Um, yeah, I think just staring into the void and days just fleeting… Sorry, I feel like this has taken a dark turn! [laughs] No, it was grand. I feel like I will never take life for granted again, so that’s good. Definitely a learning curve.
Have there been any artists that you’ve been particularly drawn to during this weird period?
Yeah, there were definitely some artists I think that brought through some incredible music last year, Lex Amor being one of them. Her – I don’t know if it’s a tape or an album that you’d call it? – but it’s Government Tropicana. That was a really, really good project that I really enjoyed. Brent Faiyez, Fuck The World, has just been on repeat for the last like however long. I love that project so much. What else? Bel Cobain. Anything she releases, I just love – I think she’s brilliant. Yeah, a lot of the same tunes. I think I even went through a period of just not really listening to music that much. But those are ones I always come back to. And ‘The Adults Are Talking’, that song by The Strokes. That literally lifted me out of such a bad mood. It kind of felt nostalgic to me in a way and I don’t know, it just really got me going [laughs] and so that’s a great tune. I feel like when I listen back to that now I think of the first lockdown and it just made me feel like I could escape a bit in that song.
You’ve worked on music as part of the collective NiNE8 and created other tunes more independently. Do you have a preference for working collaboratively or in a more solitary way?
With the NiNE8 stuff it’s always fun because it’s like, we’re all just hanging out, we can fuck around and like make something cool for the tape or whatever, which is amazing. And then, with my own stuff, I always work with one producer, so they’ll make the instrumental and I like to write everything, like all the melodies and lyrics and stuff. But then sometimes I’ll even take a beat home and write to it on my own. I feel like you don’t really know until you’re in the room how a session is going to go or how the day is gonna go because you can come up with something incredible, or sometimes not so much. But yeah, I really enjoy working with NiNE8 though. I feel like it really gets me out of my head. And it’s just fun, do you know what I mean? But yeah, completely depends on the day, and the mood and what we achieve with it.
What’s your favourite song that you’ve written and why?
I think my fave song that I’ve written… It changes all the time. Like, I really like some of the earlier stuff like ‘Vete’, which I made with Lloyd [Mac Wetha]. It just kind of reminds me of a time where we’re making music in his bedroom and it was super low-key. Listening back to that is really reminiscent and I really enjoyed doing that, and also I like the way that my vocals are mixed and stuff. It was super stripped back and there wasn’t a lot going on, and sometimes I really miss that because I like the intimacy of that and I feel like there’s the kind of soulfulness of it as well. So that’s cool to look back on. And then some of the new stuff that I’ve made, I really love. There are a couple of tracks on this next project that I’m just like, I think I’m experimenting with a sound that I’ve always really admired as well, so that’s cool. I think with that, it’s super minimalist again, but it’s like, some lyrics I’m really proud of, because – I don’t know if it will translate the same way – but for me, it paints the image perfectly of… I don’t know. It feels like I can see the world. It’s like I can see the imagery perfectly with some of the songs that I’ve written for that project, which I think is really cool. It kind of transports you to that world.
Do you have any goals in terms of where you’d like to get to with your music?
I mean, I really want to get to a place where I can produce myself, because I’m interested to see what that would sound like. And even producing for other artists, I think that would be really, really cool. I just need to understand what my style would be from the producing side of things. So that’s definitely a big goal for me. And then otherwise, I want to just make sure that I keep making music that makes me feel good. I feel like I really don’t want to lose the love for music, and I don’t think I will, but I just hope that every time this like feeling of excitement and release, stays and grows with everything that I make, and the things that I make in the future. So that’s kind of it. Yeah [laughs].
And finally, what are you most excited for when lockdown’s over?
I don’t even know at this point, if I’m being honest. Maybe something like just hugging all my friends and having to sleepover. I’m not even bothered about the pub. Like the first time I was like, “Oh can we just go to pub blah, blah,” and now I’m like, I actually couldn’t even be bothered with the pub. I don’t care, I can drink at home [laughs]. I just miss the smell of my friends and just hugging people and having sleepovers and yeah… I just missed all that, so hopefully more of that.
Bernice, the Toronto group led by Robin Dann and her backing band of musicians, craft songs that meet at the crossroads of R&B and pop. Their third full-length album, Eau De Bonjourno, feels like being invited into the studio as all manner of improvisation unfolds, on its own terms and at its own pace. It’s not difficult to imagine other musicians enjoying listening to Bernice: the band allows so much breathing space in their songs that you begin to notice patterns, pick up little notes here and there that you might have missed upon first listen.
Their new album was released by Toronto’s excellent Telephone Explosion Records, home to the likes of Deliluh and Teenanger, but Bernice’s sound doesn’t necessarily fit the prevailing sounds of the city’s current music scene. They sound a little like Crumb without the overt psychedelic themes; all the band’s members have backgrounds in jazz – hence the improvisatory nature of the music – and could be compared to Black Country, New Road if there was more playfulness in their approach.
The first half of Eau De Bonjourno holds the strongest singles. The patient rhythm on ‘Groove Elation’ is interrupted by wondrous spurts of saxophone; the personal ‘It’s Me, Robin’ is a delightful and delicate ode to finding peace with yourself. Dann is possessed of a gracious and flexible voice: she can combine for angelic harmonies on ‘Empty Cup’ and sound suave and seductive on the slinking R&B track ‘Infinite Love’. The way she breathes every word has an almost soothing effect.
The group wrote the album together in an old-school container on Toronto Island, and a sense of wanting to banish disconnection and find something deeper comes through. Dann notes “dogs on the highway” and watches “a beaver eating smooth red bark,” while the swooning ballad ‘Lone Swan’ is about the misunderstood qualities of that graceful bird. ‘Personal Bubble’ was written in late 2019, but its sentiment feels especially relatable in the context of the last year: “You’re not allowed in my personal bubble/ Please step away from my personal bubble,” Dann sighs, something not enough people did in 2020.
The shapeshifting instrumentation begins to dominate as the album drifts slowly to its conclusion. The languorous ‘Your Beautiful House’ begins like a hazy radio transmission dipping in and out before an impactful piano line passes through country twangs and zapping sound effects. ‘We Choose You’ is pure atmospherics, all lo-fi beats that are ever-moving and disjointed. Much of the album is airy and dreamy, and as a result it can often feel too lightweight, too ephemeral. The songs seem to arrive formed for the first time; this is a first take, a first try, you might think. It’s why they sound like straightforward pop songs deconstructed and stripped bare, just playthings for Bernice to explore; and it’s why getting lost in their sound can elicit an almost childlike sense of wonder and curiosity.
Is it possible to wake up daily, play online casino games and make good money to survive? If online casino games give the casino an advantage in the long run, how is it possible to remain profitable? There are thousands of professional gamblers who make a full-time living off gambling. You can also playcasino slots and other exciting favorite games and remain comfortably profitable. How can you do it?
Choose Games with the Best Chances
Casinos games have aReturn to Player (RTP) which is the payout that a casino expects to go to players. It is also called the house edge. Some games with the best chances of winning are:
Blackjack
Classic blackjack games and its variants have some of the highest RTP in casino games, up to 99.7%. The RTP varies depending on the payout rules. A 3:2 payout game beats a 6:5 payout game by an RTP of about 1.39%. A single deck game has a 0.59% higher RTP than a game of 8 decks. Employing optimal blackjack strategy ensures you get the best of the RTP.
Baccarat
If you are a beginner, you might find baccarat rules complicated. But it has one of the best RTPs depending on the hand you play. The banker bet is the best hand. In this bet, you will receive a 1:1 payout when the banker beats the player. This hand has an RTP up to 98.76%.
Craps
Online craps are not as popular as land casino craps, but they have one of the best RTPs depending on the bet you make. For example, pass line bets have 98.59% RTP while don’t pass line bets have 98.64% RTP. Online craps go up to 3x odds. Higher odds offer higher RTP. A 3x odds pass line bet has a 99.53% RTP, while 3x odds don’t pass line bet has a 99.64% RTP.
Online Slots
Some online slots have RTP up to 99%. But some slot games have high volatility in the short term. You can assess long term Expected Value (EV) by jackpot growth. If aslot jackpot grows from $200,000 to $1 million, the EV is positive.
French Roulette
This version of roulette uses a European wheel with a la partage rule. The game pays you back half the wager if the ball lands on a zero if you place an even-money wager. This roulette variant has an RTP up to 98.65%.
Know How to Use Bonuses
Bonuses reduce the amount you spend on a game. Welcome bonuses up to 150% of your first deposit have become common. There are other different bonuses you can use: deposit bonuses, no deposit bonuses, free spins and cash back bonuses.
You can get the most out of a bonus by a game with high RTP if the online casino has no restrictions. Free spins are very useful for playing slot games. However, you must consider wagering requirements that come with a bonus.
If you have a bonus of $20 with a wagering requirement of 10x, you need to wager $200 to get the bonus wins. If you play a game with an RTP of 99%, you can expect to lose $2 when completing the wagering requirement. It still leaves you with $198 at the end of fulfilling the wagering requirement.
There are hundreds of online casinos with thousands of bonus offers. You could take years to exhaust all these bonuses. The good news is that you can sign up with as many online casinos as you can.
Making a living off online casinos is tricky but some professional gamblers have succeeded.
It is not as easy as it sounds, but it might be one of the most exciting ways to make a living. Find out more on Betastic.com.
MTV’s hit seriesTeen Wolf ran for six seasons on the network before coming to an end on its own terms in 2017. Loosely based on the 1985 film starring Michael J. Fox, the television show takes a much darker approach to a teenager’s journey of growth and self-acceptance.
Scott McCall (Tyler Posey) is an awkward sophomore when viewers first meet him, but that’s all about to change. When his best friend Stiles Stilinski (Dylan O’Brien) drags him out of bed to look for the dead body his sheriff dad is investigating, Scott is attacked by a big, scary creature.
He soon begins experiencing strange symptoms, like heightened senses, super speed, superstrength, anger, and irritability. Stiles finally pieces it together on the night of the full moon, when Scott is supposed to be hanging out with Allison Argent (Crystal Reed) at a party, but instead flees, feeling weird. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s on the verge of turning into a werewolf for the first time.
The boys soon discover a world of supernatural creatures that extends beyond werewolves, and as the series progresses, Scott becomes his town’s defender and protector. The story is first and foremost about friendship. Scott may not fit in at school when viewers first meet him, and he doesn’t fit into any werewolf packs. Over the years, Scott forms his own pack that doesn’t discriminate based on supernatural ability, or anything else.
The show always retains its sense of humor and never strays from its core exploration of coming of age. Still, it’s a supernatural drama, and it loves action, violence, adventure, mystery, and suspense. Here are fifteen of the best songs that help lend the show its dramatic tone.
BBC iPlayer is a famous online streaming service that allows you to stream exclusive BBC media content including TV shows, movies, and documentaries on multiple devices.
However, you can use this impressive UK-based video on demand service to watch some of the best comedy movies without any cost. This is one of the major reasons why people residing in different countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc. prefer BBC iPlayer to watch popular TV shows, movies and other content all in one place.
For instance, there are 1.2 million British people currently residing in Australia. They want to access BBC iPlayer within Australian territory but are unable to do so due to geo-restriction hassles.
If you are one of those British people who want to stream famous movies and other media content on a wide range of devices, you should use a VPN to access BBC iPlayer in Australia.
By doing so, you can watch a plethora of movies and TV shows based on diverse genres like comedy, action, romance, horror, etc. hassle-free.
Read this post in detail to know about 8 best comedy movies you can watch on BBC iPlayer.
Sliding Doors
Sliding Doors is an impressive comedy film that revolves around an ad executive who has been fired from her job. In reality, the film portrays two sides of the story. In the first scenario, the heroine dumps her boyfriend and starts her life from scratch with a new man.
In the second scenario, she still lives with her first boyfriend and tries to fix her turbulent life.
Educating Rita
Educating Rita is a light-hearted comedy film that describes the importance of women empowerment. The story of the movie explores the ambitions of a married woman who takes admission in a prestigious highschool to complete her education.
The film takes an upside turn when her passion for learning starts affecting her married life. The film has all the right ingredients to keep its viewers engaged and entertained at the same time.
Mindhorn
Mindhorn is another comedy film that showcases the story of a person who has played a lead role in the famous 1980’s detective series Mindhorn. In this movie, this person cooperates with the police to arrest a serial killer. If you prefer to watch a comedy movie that has some other flairs like action, Mindhorn is a good choice. Mindhorn has a brilliant cast of British funny men and women. It is a great example of the comedians fans can see on stage at a comedy club in London on a visit to the capital. With comedians like Steve Coogan and Simon Farnaby, Mindhorn is a must-see comedy.
Stan & Ollie
Stan & Ollie is an excellent comedy film based on real-life incidents. The film describes the stardom of a famous comedy duo, Laurel and Hardy in a subtle manner.
If you are a fan of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, you must watch Stan & Ollie along with your loved ones.
Paddington 2
Paddington 2 is an impressive comedy movie in which a bear buys a gift for her aunt’s 100th birthday. However, a thief steals the gift and he is accused of the theft and imprisoned eventually. But, the story takes an unexpected turn when he tries to find the culprit himself.
Sylvia Scarlett
Sylvia Scarlett is a romantic comedy film that unveils the life of a woman who wants to help her debt-ridden father. Therefore, she dresses herself as a man to move freely in society. However, things begin to change when she meets a bohemian artist.
Jellyfish
Jellyfish is an engaging comedy film that depicts the early-life struggles of a young teenager. However, the film takes an upside turn when her drama teacher motivates her to act as a standup comedian in front of the audience at the college’ graduation function.
As a result, she starts believing in her hidden talent more than ever and ultimately finds a new way of life.
Shakespeare in Love
This comedy film portrays the story of a famous British novelist, poet and actor William Shakespeare who suffers from a writer’s block. Fortunately, she meets an unknown young artist during the casting session of his new drama and finds his muse again.
Wrapping Things Up
BBC iPlayer helps you to watch some of the most popular movies based on the comedy genre. Furthermore, you can stream such movies on multiple devices like desktops, laptops, mobile phones, Smart TVs, etc. Luckily, you do not have to bother yourself about the subscription cost.
As BBC iPlayer is one of the fewest streaming services available in the market that does not charge a single penny from its subscribers.
Yolanthe Cabau stars as Lotte in Just Say Yes. Lotte has been planning her perfect wedding for years. However, when her groom decided to cancel the wedding at the last minute, her dream is shattered into a million pieces. The film will be available on Netflix from the 2nd of April and stars Jim Bakkum, Noortje Herlaar, Nienke Plas, Tino Martin, Kim-Lian van der Meij, Josylvio, Pip Pellens and many more.
Netflix is currently trading at $512.54 on NASDAQ.
Watch the official trailer for Just Say Yes below.
Ladi Bird is Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut, which she also wrote, starring Saoirse Ronan as Christine MacPherson, who gives herself the name “Lady Bird”. It’s 2002 and Lady Bird is a Senior at her Sacramento Catholic high school. She’s determined to get out of her smalltown home and go to a prestigious college at the end of the year, but she’s already started distancing herself from her family.
Her mother (Laurie Metcalf) fruitlessly protests against Lady Bird’s decision, but she never listens. Their relationship becomes increasingly strained as Lady Bird joins the theatre program, gets a boyfriend, and finds a new group of friends.
The film is rooted in its setting with a soundtrack to match. Here are thirteen of the best songs from the soundtrack of Lady Bird.
With Fun In My Life – James Whitney
Hey It’s Love – The Commands
Hand In My Pocket – Alanis Morissette
Panis Angelicus – Adolf Fredrik Girls Choir
Little Of Your Love – HAIM
Days Of Steam – John Cale
Crash Into Me – Dave Matthews Band
The Crossroads – Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
This Eve Of Parting – John Hartford
Happy Birthday – Altered Images
Always See Your Face – Love
Rosa Mystica – The University of Notre Dame Folk Choir
