The cast is filled with a lot of lesser-known actors, but is supplemented with several surprisingly familiar faces such as Jeff Daniels, Michelle Dockery, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, and Sam Waterson from the Netflix series Grace and Frankie. Out of this large cast of unknowns emerges our very own SCAD alum, Kayli Carter, playing Sadie Rose. Sadie Rose is one of many women living in the small mining town of La Belle, Arizona. The men of La Belle, excluding the sheriff, his deputy, and a few of the older shop tenders, have all died in a mining accident. The town is now governed by the dead mayor’s wife: a pants-wearing, gun-shooting, bisexual who’s in love with the town’s prostitute-turned-school-teacher. With Frank Griffin’s hoard of bandits quickly approaching in search of Roy Goode, an outlaw stowing away in the barn of the town’s own outcast, Alice Fletcher, these women must decide if they are willing to give up their mine to a company that promises to bring in strong men to work it, or be left to fend for themselves.

There has been a lot of debate over whether or not this series has lived up to the responsibility of providing its viewers with original feminist characters. Godless certainly doesn’t do much to break the formula of a single outstanding male outlaw with a heart of gold being hunted by an intimidating number of deadly male bandits, but I think the redeeming factors of this show lay in the new characters that it does introduce. It’s so refreshing to watch a Western and see a strong female character like Michelle Dockery’s Alice Fletcher that isn’t the bar mistress (although Tess Frazer’s character, the former prostitute, does at one point joke that Fletcher would do great as a mistress.) The strong female characters don’t end there. The women of La Belle are powerful, diverse, capable, and hilarious. Even the male characters are, for the most part, three dimensional and dynamic. The sheriff’s ginormous ego is threatened by the fact that he’s losing his vision, which throws his arrogance into overdrive and forces him to face his own limitations. The deadly outlaw Frank Griffin has a lot of likable and relatable qualities, and by the end of this series you get a sense that this sociopath may just be force-fed a dose of reality.

Overall this series was wildly entertaining and beautiful. Several shots took my breath away, the story was captivating, and the character’s paths were skillfully interwoven. However, the show could have definitely done more for the topics of feminism and racism that it so casually addresses. The new female archetypes, Native American secondary characters, and retired African American soldiers inhabiting the neighboring town of Blackville were perhaps a weak start, but at least these topics are becoming part of the conversation.

4/5 ominous tumbleweeds

The post Godless, The Netflix Miniseries that Rewrites the Western Genre appeared first on SCAD Radio.

In June of this year, Steve Martin reconnected with a certain five piece Blue Grass band to release an album as the group Steve Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers. Despite the album’s name, “The Long Awaited Album” managed to stay under the radar of both Blue Grass fans and Steve Martin fans for some time after it’s debut. The irony embedded in this title seems to provide thematic clues as to what the purpose of Martin’s new music will be. He spends this album exploring the incorporation of his comedy into his music, something that he has been shy of in the past.

The album showcases a blend of novelty songs and more tender/personal songs, with a whopping five instrumentals sprinkled into the mix. The more comedic tracks feature Martin’s vocals, but the group’s lead vocalist Woody Platt takes the lead on the majority, typically in the form of sing-songy ballads. Platt’s vocal style is certainly an acquired taste. His voice brings to mind the soulful bellowing of many of the artists that exist in today’s Pop Country scene. The lyrics on these more soulful songs could come off as border-line cheesy, so it was tracks such as “Caroline” which really redeemed the album for me. “Caroline” embodies the style of Steve Martin’s stand-up comedy, and I don’t know if I would have made it through the album had it not been for the refreshing breaks of Martin’s whimsical punch-line lyrics every now and then.

The instrumental tracks are easy listening. The musicians in this group are undeniably talented, but Martin’s banjo always steals the show. It would be great in the future to hear an album which featured Steve Martin as the lead vocalist. Until then, I’ll be bumping this album as the perfect soundtrack to long drives on sunny days.

Three out of five banjo pics

The post Steve Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers Present ‘The Long-Awaited Album’ appeared first on SCAD Radio.

In preparation for Shaky Knees Music Festival this weekend, I’ve been revisiting The Shins, a band that holds a pretty special place in my heart. Wincing the Night Away was the first ever album that I owned on vinyl and I have fond memories of laying on my bedroom floor at night and reading the lyric excerpts as I let the whole album play three or four times through. I’m sure that my friends got tired of me playing “Sleeping Lessons” for them, but I just could not help it. That song changed my life and it will never not excite me. James Mercer is an absolute p-o-e-t- but not in the kind of way where he needs you to know it. His beautiful lyrics are woven throughout the brilliantly produced melodies and sounds in the subtlest of ways.

As I was treating myself to this trip down memory lane, I realized I had not yet listened to their new album start to finish while reading the lyrics, the way I’d first done those many Christmases ago with my newly unwrapped digs. And boy, am I thankful that I had this revelation. Their new album Heartworms, which came out in March of this year, does not have a mediocre song on it. This album is unlike anything they’ve ever done and so, if you’re still with me, I’d like to walk through it with ya and hopefully convince you to give it a listen.

Name For You

This song gives me definite “Girl Sailor” throwback vibes in the way that it characterizes a strong female muse who is – get this guys – NOT NECESSARILY a love interest. Mercer has always had the ability to portray the female experience in a very compassionate way. Also, one of the reasons I think this album is so refreshing is because it doesn’t hide behind the heavy veil of metaphor present within their previous albums. Instead, these songs have much clearer messages, all without being polarizing or embarrassing. It’s light, and I really appreciate that.

Standout Lyrics

“Somebody with an antique notion
comes along to tighten the line
They’re just afraid of you speaking your mind”

“You can keep your can up
If you just never eat again
It’s a means to a terrible end”

“Yeah it’s a bland kind of torture
You’ve played the mother and wife
But what do you really dream of at night?”

Painting a Hole

This second track is a mesmerizing commentary on our generation and how we deal with the struggles of existing. It’s another example of how the social messages that have existed within The Shins’ previous music have become much more defined on this album. “Painting a Hole” is a symbolic expression for the ways that we both cope with our problems (“You’re painting a hole, can you crawl up inside it? You’re painting a hole, on everyone in your way”) and how we tend to avoid them (“You’re painting a hole to the magical violence. You’re painting a hole, but it keeps fading away.”)

Standout lyrics

“So many germs to avoid
Thinking about it just nurtures them
Baby, return to your toys
A little mental hideaway”

“Morning dove
One thing I’m sure of
Kisses ain’t near enough
To reign the vultures in”

Cherry Hearts

This is a song that a lot of us can relate to. It’s both fun and bittersweet, and once again we get a look into the world of James Mercer in a way that we’ve never really gotten before. This song is focused, and you never question what it’s about. He’s got it bad for a girl that doesn’t have it bad for him, and from here on out this becomes a major recurring theme of the album.

Standout lyrics

“I’m a practical guy
but sometimes I can fly off the handle
Thinking in scandalous ways”

“I’ve never done time
But I’ve done the crime of wanting
Something that never could stay”

Fantasy Island/ Mildenhall

I’m going to talk about these two songs together, because they’re both deeply personal ones. “Fantasy Island” is a reflection on his childhood, and it’s a very honest admission of faults that he had growing up, as well as ones he sees in himself now. If “Fantasy Island” is a song about the insecurity and fear that has followed him since boyhood, “Mildenhall” narrates how he came to discover music. It’s a Southern-esque ballad sung to his younger self. Both songs explain how he got to where he is today.

Standout lyrics

“I’ve always had something to hide
My skinny arms, my evil intentions
And back at school, hitting the fire alarms
Desperately wanting attention”

“I don’t want to show you my feelings
I don’t want to force you to deal
I just want to crash through the ceiling
before it gets too real”

“I guess my shoes said I might relate
Somehow she knew I’d like to stay up
waiting with her in the cold
For cheap beer and rock ’n roll
Which in time put lots of things in my mind”

Rubber Ballz

I’m really happy to discover that even rock stars are troubled with chasing after women that couldn’t care whether they stayed or left. Here again, we see the repetition of the theme, “Help, I’ve caught the feels.” This song is so playful, and the vocals really bounce around in a way that sounds so congruent to their previous albums. The lyrics are pretty cheeky as well, and they add an element of humor to this otherwise serious record.

Standout lyrics

“I know
If she gave a f*** then it would show
And she wouldn’t have me stabbing other boys
Like it’s just a bit of sweetness she enjoys”

“Hold on, maybe this girl is alright
Just wants the benefit of a modern love life
and I can’t tell the difference anymore
I’ve turned making bad decisions
Into some kind of art form
Don’t mention boundaries on the phone
They slide and glide right on out the door”

“My vices have voted,
her ass duly noted,
I can’t kick her out of my bed”

Half A Million

Ok, I know I’ve been pretty excited about all of these, but this is a goooooood song. It covers so much – the expectations placed on him, the confusion of being a person who feels things, and how he escapes these pressures – they’re all featured. This song expresses the way in which Mercer uses that fear and inadequacy talked about in the previous songs to create something that allows him to free himself of those burdens.

Standout lyrics

…All of them? But I’ll try to whittle it down.

“I make myself a promise
then break it every night
I’m feeling loose and life don’t make no sense
I use my brains to build a fence
‘round the claim I stake
I take the drugs but the drugs won’t take”

“There’s half a million things that I’m supposed to be
A shelter in the nighttime
A punk running free
And if it gets too deep
I reach for my guitar
And if I try hard,
I find something I can really drop into
And everything is just a thing that I can sing”

Dead Alive/So Now What

I’d like to compare these two songs because they both feel like a tribute to Mercer’s old style of writing. “Dead Alive” takes on a more surrealist and severe tone, talking about moments of emotional confusion and the sense of being overwhelmed or fearful of your own mind. “So Now What” is a nice juxtaposition to this style in the sense that it is soft and romantic, but it is similar in the way that it is less narrative-driven than the other songs on the album. It’s not so much telling a story as it is conveying an emotion.

Standout lyrics

“On a walk in a fragile state
Weird angles coming over the wire
Back home we got girls in braids and they’re on
roller skates and they roll any way
they like”

“I had this crazy idea,
Somehow we cruise to the end
Change lives and everything precious
And I guess we’ll just begin again
I hope you know you’re my best friend”

The Fear

This song really communicates something important. As I read the lyrics I felt like I was reading a confession about my own anxieties, and the duality of wanting to be happy and feeling as though you’ve tried everything, but also yearning to accept yourself as you are and to give yourself the grace of understanding. It gives a voice to those moments where we’re feeling good and we suddenly consider it somewhat silly to have spend so much time riding a low.

Standout lyrics

“Feel the fear
Of all the stupid things
A man could feel
While his freedom rings
He squanders the deal”

“This fear is a terrible drug
If only I had sense enough
To let it give way to love”

“Come back and touch my face
Feel for fever in the night
You look into my eyes
But you don’t really recognize me
anymore”

Heartworms

So this track is a bit whiny, but in a very self aware and honest way. Aren’t we allowed to be whiny sometimes? “Heartworms,” the song which is the album’s namesake, reiterates a similar idea to “butterflies in the stomach,” in that something can be enjoyable yet unsettling, and quite possibly unhealthy. We know, through the inclusion of the whole “heart” motif, that his affliction is one of the emotions. This title track effectively describes the theme that runs through each song, and ties Heartworms together succinctly.

Standout Lyrics

“Anything to get some of your affection
Maybe impress you with a song
I’m trying to minimize the damage done
‘cause there ain’t no one like you”

“I’m trying to figure out when it was
you gave me these heartworms
I feel them wriggling in my blood,
ya’ gonna do me harm”

“Right now I’d rather lose this losing feeling
that came when you cooled off”

In my oh-so-professional opinion, this album is breathtaking. I hope that you give it a listen, and that you can appreciate the lovely sounds coming out of James Mercer’s mouth, as well as the synthesizing rhythms and samples that are unique to the style of The Shins. But also, I hope you get to experience the pleasure of taking in all these wonderful noises while following along to the lyrics. It’s really easy to miss them in their music, and I underrated them for a long time. This album really is so set apart from their others, and while Wincing the Night Away still tickles my nostalgia bone, I truly believe that Heartworms is a work of genius. This experience was actually very healing for me, and if you guys can get anything out of it in the way that I did, that would be like, super cool.

5 out of 5 Marriage Proposals to James Mercer

The post The Shins’ new album gave me Heartworms appeared first on SCAD Radio.

There are aspects of the show that can be grating, to say the least. It hooks you with that familiar aggravation as you watch the characters make poor decision after poor decision. Then, you get stuck watching the next episode to find out if it all works out when you really should be using these last precious hours of the night to get some sleep. With its kooky campy style that is part of the show’s charm, and it’s secondary characters that represent to the viewers both who we’re afraid of turning into and what kind of people we might truly need in our life, the show makes light of what could otherwise be some very heavy content to work through. At times, however, the writers make too much light of the subject matter. Some episodes will leave you writhing in frenzied annoyance while the characters you’ve become so involved with hurt each other over and over again. There is often the urge to grab them like dolls and knock their heads together while screaming, “Communicate!” yet Gus and Mickey are always honest with each other at the end of these periods of frustration – a welcome relief in that scratch-itch-scratch sort of way.

The first episode is a work of art that lays out these characters flaws in their entirety. Once you really get to know Gus and Mickey, they hit you with the second episode which is a satisfying display of everything you want the series to be. For the rest of the season, the relationship between these two volleys between varying levels of disappointing. But you can’t say that they don’t warn you. The two’s departing sentiments at the end of the second episode foreshadow the breakdown of events that follow when Mickey assures Gus that, “Dude, I’m the queen of eating s***. You should never be embarrassed,” to which he responds, “I’ve been waiting for somebody to say that to me my whole life.” Perhaps their correspondence is disappointing because it honestly portrays the shortcomings of human relationship instead of the cookie cutter, us-against-the-world portrayal of love we’re used to being fed. Our duo will spend the rest of the two seasons deciding how far they’re able to push the other person, and realizing that they can’t fix the other nor should they run away for fear of being fixed. This is what makes the show so rewarding to watch. There is pain and there is pleasure as Mickey and Gus’ characters unfold into people willing to better themselves as a result of the acceptance that they’ve received and learn to give in return. Are they meant for each other? Eh. But there is something to be said for those beautiful scenes that capture their dynamic when they have each gotten out of their own way.

Love is a show that finally forces the nice guy to realize his own manipulative tendencies and irrationalities – a bit of character development we seldom see in today’s TV landscape. At the same time, it portrays the man-eating alcoholic/sex addict as someone who is able to make strides towards controlling herself and work toward her goals. The beautiful thing about this series is that it’s honest. It shows two people, aware of their issues, and willing to put in the effort required to make it work. These are characters that we, as viewers, are proud to see ourselves in. Gus shows us the side of ourselves that is scared to give too much, scared of rejection, and scared that the person that has captured our affection could never love us for who we really are. Mickey, in a RIV-ET-ING performance by Jacobs, shows us that side of ourselves that is afraid to burden those that we care about with a load we fear is too big for them to carry. Mickey says to a fellow sex and love addict at the beginning of season two, “I don’t want to binge on him,” and this seems to sum up their dilemma in a glorious way. Both have plenty of baggage that would make it easy enough for them to split, which is the viewer’s fear during the entire two seasons. However, something draws them together. Every now and then we catch a glimpse of what it’s like when they aren’t trying so hard to be what they think the other wants or running away out of fear. Gus and Mickey share a genuine connection, and it is a connection that they deem worthy of preserving. This time, it’s worth getting right.

4 out of 5 nervous break-downs

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