Comic books inspired generations that there were heroes among us. That face in the crowd, when you looked closer, was the possible savior of us all from the encroaching evil in the world. In addition, comic books also illuminated that the path toward societal success was rife with confusion, and that was the entry point where villainous forces seized hold and governed by simultaneous campaigns of trust and fear. Most importantly, comic books like a mirror to society, implied that the same face in the crowd might not be a hero in waiting - but that heroic acts could be present within the span of everyday life.
There in the dark night of 1939 Brooklyn, 17-year-old Sammy Clay welcomes a new family member to his bustling life. Asking for a cigarette and bonding over the art of drawing, Sammy and his Czech cousin Josef Kavalier form a union that could have been a comic in its day - yet wound up as a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. When Kavalier escapes Prague as the Nazis are closing in, he makes it 10 kilometers from the border before his papers are turned down. Author Michael Chabon writes the story in Kavalier's voice, and it has all the wringing emotion of the terrible event/secret in a hero's origin story. It is one aspect to understand the desperation of your family sacrificing everything to get you "to the good ol' U.S.A." (he intones in American twang.) It is entirely another to be close enough to smell freedom only to be stopped.
Placed on the train back to Prague and faced with a homecoming that would be a crushing disappointment, Kavalier seeks out Kornblum, a former "second story man" whose claim to fame was that he once taught Houdini to be "an escape artist." As a young man, Kavalier studied with Kornblum. In one long, dream-like flashback, we learn enough facts about this education to confirm what we already know from the opening of the book. If that sounds less adept that it seems, Chabon makes it spring to life. Just like the pins raising to free the cylinder, Chabon's expert prose unlocks these memories and the fear Kavalier learned to first embrace and then defeat.
Chabon is unlocking childhood in his 2001 Pulitzer winner. "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" carries with it vivid memories of the discovery of the art of storytelling. Kavalier has a true story and it is riveting. One turn of the hairpin in the lock seems to reveal that there are more pins to raise than one considered. While you read Kavalier's origin story, you know that he survived. Yet, every twist of the lock is made to feel like it may not open.
As a child, Chabon saw the writers on his shelf as "family." He told an audience at The John Adams Institute that good writing inspired him to imitate those authors that he admired, specifically Arthur Conan Doyle. Even more to consider as you read the text is how Chabon is memorializing Brooklyn and America in his father's time - a lifetime commitment. After Kavalier's tale opens the novel, Chabon lays out a very cogent and universal explanation of the novel's backdrop in the vaunted "Golden Age of Comic Books." His admiration comes across how he related to these stories that were seen as throwaway by the outside world.
Immediately, Sam discovers that Josef can draw. In fact, Josef studied at The School of Fine Arts before having to be sent away. Sam is the classic American "idea" man. He has comic books in his heart, and craves them as an escape from his workaday world. In addition, at 17, the implication is that Sam knows there is nothing for him except to stay in Brooklyn and work his way up the ladder until he gets to yell at underlings. Chabon draws this world with care and grace toward those "novelty" publishers who are just trying to make a buck American style.
Whether it is their distant DNA connection or destiny, Sam intrinsically knows how to communicate with Josef. Also, because he is family, Chabon never really introduces anyone with a tendency to "take" from the other. There is competition, but in a healthy way that is made to feel like rings of growth on a tree.
"Action Comics #1" from Siegel & Schuster literally changes everything. Chabon writes it like only the boys (his "geniuses") see it. However, in gaining an understanding of where they were raised Kavalier & Clay make it feel as if it was a long time coming. Like The Golem that haunts the opening stanza of the book (and is the first draft/idea that hits Josef when asked to draw,) in Chabon's words, "they are a danger to their creator." "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" confirms that in any world whether treacherous or too uniform, we live with danger to consume, translate, and create a means to escape.
NEW MUSIC THIS WEEK (SINGER/SONGWRITER EDITION)
ALEX G. - Headlights [BLUE LP/CD](RCA)
Alex Giannascoli, a/k/a Sandy (Alex G) is man of musical mystery. Leaping from Lo-Fi wizard to breezy Indie Rockers on "Headlights" is no illusion. He has been writing songs of refuge from the outside world for years. As the subject of his writing (either fictional or applied to himself,) we have endured broken hearts (2014's still brilliant "DSU") and heartbreaking loss and confusion from drug addiction in his circle (2019's "House of Sugar.") "Headlights" is a major label leap, but only given the time for the simplicity of his music to coalesce into an expression of the multiple emotions it conjures when you listen.
ALEX WARREN - You'll Be Alright, Kid [WHITE LP/CD](Atlantic)
"Ordinary" is inescapable. "You'll Be Alright, Kid' is not necessarily the culmination of his massive YouTube/TikTok success (as it wisely includes singles dating back to 2023,) it is another in the stylistic change of the male Pop star. Willfully earnest and tempered with sadness, the duet with ROSE on "On My Mind" is next-level Coldplay skill with Benson Boone-ish emotional swell. Like Boone, Warren's success began in the UK and is now officially ready for the world.
LORD HURON - The Cosmic Selector, Vol. 1 [GLOW IN THE DARK 2LP/RED 2LP/CD](Mercury)
Ben Schneider's previous records have all been concerned with atmospherics, but never like this. "The Cosmic Selector, Vol. 1" wants to be a dusky travelogue (the propulsive "Who Laughs Last" with guest Kristen Stewart.) "Looking Back" is crafted around howling winds and "Nothing I Need" is built on the uplift of bluegrass-y banjos. Like a Simon & Garfunkel record filtered through today's Indie Folk, Lord Huron knows a hook ("I got everything I wanted, I got nothing that I need") and how to keep his music sounding like a "Cosmic" jukebox.
JADE BIRD - Who Wants To Talk About Love? [RED LP/CD](Glassnote)
Breakups make up a large portion of the impetus for writing today. English husky songbird (who played here in Hattiesburg in 2019 opening for The Lumineers) still wants to be Alanis Morrissette. However, her breakup album has more in common with Lucinda Williams and surprisingly devotes its most successful-sounding ballad ("Who Wants") to being heard ("Who wants to talk about love when it all goes wrong?") Like Noah Cyrus, here is another female singer/songwriter being personal but not confessional.
NATALIE BERGMAN - My Home Is Not In This World [WHITE LP/CD](Third Man/The Orchard)
One of the most poignant and affecting albums from the interregnum we experienced earlier this decade belonged to this former almost-Pop star Natalie Bergman. "Mercy," co-produced with her fellow Wild Belle brother Elliot, was a spiritual record that soaked its soul searching in Soul. For "My Home," Bergman switches to a Sixties Nancy Sinatra Pop sound that accents her voice ("Gunslinger" complete with strings) and then returns to the minimal Soul of "Mercy" with airy simplicity ("Dance.") Fantasy and nostalgia, as well as fantasy in nostalgia.
BILLIE MARTEN - Dog Eared [BLUE LP/CD](Fiction)
As a budding singer/songwriter in England for the last ten years, we have not heard enough Billie Marten on our shores. The smooth love-soaked grooves of "Dog Eared" hope to change that. Tapping into her Seventies John Martyn-esque enveloping warmness, Marten's ongoing relationship with Will Taylor from Flyte (the beautiful duet "Don't Forget About Us" - deserving on chemistry alone to be a hit) is the spark that keeps the fire lit. "Leap Year" is a slow-paced, melodic but methodical study in how one holds on to every word ("our love is like an ache/it keeps you lying awake') when they find their soulmate. Even in a state of slight depression, Marten warms up to wrapping yourself in the feeling of love - which she they turns over to Sam Evian's stunning outro guitar solo. However, it is not all Joni Mitchell-esque introspection. With fiddles and a slow marching beat, "Swing" is outrageous enough to be a fun release and still possesses the presence of yet another great single - and great album from this promising artist.
MERPIRE - MILK POOL [LP](self-released)
Melbourne's Rhiannon Atkinson-Howatt is not new to audiences in her native Australia or even the UK (where she found her producer James Dring.) Like Phoebe Bridgers with a little more maturity (and less detail,) Merpire may be the perfect union of modern female singer/songwriter and bratty-but-vulnerable Nineties Alt.Rocker. Unlike Blondshell, Merpire woos you with her desire (and wordless hook) on "Premonition" and then subtly reveals herself as desirous. "Milk Pool" works because of Merpire's ability to turn a phrase ("by the loved ones-who never really love you" on "Canine") and turn her gaze to either reveal that she is being real or masked for protection.
REISSUES OF THE WEEK
Various Artists - DYLAN'S CIRCLE [2LP/CD](Elektra)
Jac Holzman founded Elektra Records 75 years ago with $600 investment and a dream. When his enthusiasm for the Folk music around him in Washington Square Park finally found an audience, Elektra's catalog was available for the Sixties Folk Boom. To recreate the electric atmosphere around Dylan's days of playing around New York City, "Dylan's Circle" rebuilds the coffeehouse/hootenanny circuit from the ground up. Holzman chose every track here including favorites from Judy Collins, Fred Neil, and Tom Paxton..and of course, Dylan.
THE HEADS - Reverberations Vol.3-7 [LP](Cardinal Fuzz/Rooster/Feeding Tube)
CLUTCH - Clutch [2LP](Weathermaker)
Stoner Rock/Metal is one subgenre of Metal that always shows the opportunity for growth. Despite that ability, most of today's music drowns in the mire of trying to sound too much like their antecedents. So, when Kyuss and the others erupted from the desert in the Nineties, or Fu Manchu converted their compact Orange County Punk to extensive jams - they sounded like throwbacks to Blue Cheer and lysergic Biker Rock from the Seventies. However, these Bristol boys traced it straight back from Spacemen 3's love of the Stooges to the underrated Psychedelic undertow of Aussie bands like The Scientists of the Eighties. Formed in 1990, The Heads recorded output has long been an array of singles, most of which were lucky enough to have 1000 made. 1995's "Relaxing With..." remains one of Stoner Rock's lost masterpieces. Finally, Feeding Tube has gathered five albums of recording that while scrappy garage-recorded tapes come alive with guitar squall (the surprising Japanese High Rise-style burner "spliff riff (garage '92") and blinding riffage (the Mountain-goes-mad fuzz epic "Bedminster Hayride (parts 1 + 2). "Reverberations" could be the missing scrolls in the pre-history of Stoner Rock.
Another Stoner Rock favorite that is overlooked are the grinding Primus-esque narratives of Clutch. Emerging from the union of Punk/Metal, Clutch were among the first inject a little Funk and take out the fuzz in favor of using the space and the groove. Like Black Sabbath or even Eighties Hip-Hop/Alt. Rock, "Clutch" wields some mighty large riffs ("Big News I" drifts into 'Big News II" on waves of backwards licks) and cosmic drift which they skillfully pull into focus ("Spacegrass" always feels right.)
Various - I WANNA BE A TEEN AGAIN: AMERICAN POWER POP 1980-1989 [3CD](Cherry Red UK)
In the transition of Punk to "New Wave," American radio audiences traded their teen idols for Punk-ish new Power Pop. The seeds of the Seventies artists who plowed this trade in tribute to their Sixties idols, suddenly beared fruit. When The Knack spent six weeks on top of the Billboard singles chart in 1979 with "My Sharona," Power Pop experienced its own wave. "I Wanna Be A Teen Again" does not draw any lines between what was a hit (Phil Seymour's "Precious to Me" hit #22 in Spring 1981) and what was not (The Flashcubes excellent 1980 single "It's You Tonight.") Instead, the cuts are assembled like one of those old K-Tel albums where it plays hit-after-hit including The M&M's ("I'm So Tired,") The Go-Go's ("How Much More,") The Wigs ("Tell It All,") and the underrated Bongos. Bands here hail from the West Coast, East Coast, The South, and The Midwest - well represented in the last days of its domination. Even Mississippi slides into the picture with Bobby Sutliff and Tim Lee's excellent Windbreakers classic "I Never Thought."
Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
