BBC America is currently airing a short run television series called Spies of Warsaw. I have just finished watching the first two hour episode this morning. The next airs tonight at 9 PM. This is first rate television. For those who enjoy spy thrillers this one featuring the activities in Warsaw prior to World War II is most enjoyable.

We just purchased a ROKU box for our home. With this and our HBO subscription we now can watch any HBO series, new or old, on our own schedule. One has to think that as the series such as Boardwalk Empire, True Blood, and Game of Thrones  are big draws for Netflix that HBO Go must be hurting them quite a bit.

On the ROKU they also have the VEVO video channel. We spent Sunday afternoon being very unproductive and watching all kinds of eighties videos. I explained to my kids that MTV really did used to play nothing but videos. The downside was that I have had to listen to my wife and daughter break out into ” We Are the World” constantly in the last two days.

Last night on David Letterman Lindsay Lohan made an appearance. Certainly she has had her share of problems but Letterman, who is a very underrated interviewer, did a great job with her. It was actually kind of touching to see her tear up as Dave wished her well in trying to change her life. Of course she is an actress…..but let’s try not to be cynical and take it for what it appeared to be.

On the same episode Gary Clark Jr performed. Wow, this guy is amazing. A virtuoso on the guitar with a voice like a soul great. If you have not heard his music, I had not but will be exploring it soon, I urge you to do so.

The Waterfront Concert Series deserves great credit for the shows that they are bringing to Bangor this summer. Looking at the shows for Kenny Chesney, Phish, and Lil Wayne ( although that has not been officially announced yet ) the organizers have the chance to bring some enormous crowds to town. This is good for everybody.

My daughter is also very appreciative of the pending return of Big Time Rush.

We went to see the Drive By Truckers at The State Theater in Portland about a month ago. It was a tremendous show. The venue is great, the view was perfect. I know this will make me sound old but one wonders do they have to have the guitars so loud one struggles to hear the singing. It was a great show but, and I cannot believe I am saying this, if they just turned it down a notch it would be so much better.

On the Sundance Channel Top of The Lake starring Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss had it’s final episodes next Monday night. This has been a great show. If you did not see it the first time look for the reruns or find it online. Truly excellent programming.

Jimmy Fallon will be taking over Jay Leno’s spot. I love Fallon, his exuberance to be doing what he is doing is very appealing. Still Letterman is like my favorite Uncle I presume I will watch Dave and then watch the funny bits from Fallon online.

Game of Thrones on HBO is back with it’s third season. I will say it again. A wonderful show. We truly are in an age of great television.

Mad Men returned last Sunday night for the first episode of it’s sixth season. The series has a tendency to start each season slowly. This episode was no different. Still one can be assured that within a couple of weeks it will all come together. An awful lot of facial hair on episode one.

Looking forward to Bangor’s favorite son Stephen King’s Under the Dome having a summer run series based on his doorstop weight book Under the Dome. I read the book, it should adapt very well to television.

Last week I stumbled upon the posthumous Jim Morrison album An American Prayer. Mostly recordings of the singers ramblings about Indian mystics and drug addled mind trip the album is a trip into a strange place. In high school and college we thought he made sense. Now it just reminds you of the Drunk Uncle sketch on Saturday Night Live.

Heard the first single from John Fogerty’s upcoming album Wrote a Song For Everyone. On this album Fogerty performs his classic hits with help from some of today’s current stars. On the single ” Fortunate Son” he is joined by The Foo Fighters and the teaming works well. It rocks. Other collaborators include Keith Urban, Kid Rock, Miranda Lambert, and My Morning Jacket along with many others.

Brad Paisley and LL Cool J are both getting heat over a single they have released called Accidental Racist. I do not see what all the fuss is about. I think it is a real effort on both their parts to address the differences between people and how we should all give each other the benefit of the doubt. Those who are criticizing I think are missing the point. We often point out that performers and artists just care about money and do not stand for anything and yet when these two try to further the conversation on an important subject they are ridiculed from both the left and the right. Seems kind of unfair to me.

That is all for this week we will be back soon with more.

Harold is a retired beer salesman. His retirement is not exactly what one dreams about. His wife is not happy, she is negative and blames Harold for all of the undefined wrongness in her life. One morning as Harold is buttering his breakfast toast his wife, bringing in the mail, passes him an unexpected letter. Harold learns that a former co-worker, a woman who served as an accountant at the brewery, that he has not seen for twenty years, is dying of cancer. Harold feels a strong emotion at this and quickly dashes off a letter to his friend. As he walks to the mailbox, thinking about his life and the quiet misery he lives in, Harold walks right by. Before long he has gone past several and made a decision that will change his life and the lives of more people than he can imagine.

Harold has decided to walk to visit Queenie. The fact that he is wearing boat shoes, did not bring his mobile phone, and, most importantly, that Queenie lives 500 miles to the North do not change his decision. Soon Harold is off on a trip across the British Isles.

Harold’s journey begins as a solitary reflection. We read about Harold’s life and with Harold revisit his memories of a time when life held so much promise. When his wife looked at him with love, as if he were seven feet tall. A time when his son and he had a relationship unlike now when, though his wife still talks to his son, Harold has not seen him in years.

The people Harold meets on his trip are a varied lot. One thing soon becomes apparent to him however, he is giving people an opportunity to consider their own lives. Often when they seek him out he finds himself serving as a sounding board, one that does not judge but only attempts to understand and reassure.

Harold learns that we are all broken in some way, In a stunning passage that I will quote heavily below we see all the people Harold meets. Though he is himself not a man of faith, he wishes he could but he has never been able to believe, he begins to serve an almost religious purpose to these strangers who he meets. In a long passage we read that:

” Harold passed office workers, dog walkers, shoppers, children going to school, mothers and buggies, and hikers like himself, as well as several tourist parties. He met a tax inspector who was a Druid and had not worn a pair of shoes in ten years. He talked with a young woman on the trail of her real father, a priest who confessed to tweeting during mass, as well as several people in training for a marathon, and an Italian man with a singing parrot. He spent an afternoon with a white witch from Glastonbury, a homeless man who had drunk away his house, as well as four bikers looking for the M5, and a mother of six who  confided she had no idea life could be so solitary. Harold walked with the strangers and listened. He judged no one, although as the days wore on, and time and places began to melt, he couldn’t remember if the tax inspector had no shoes or had a parrot on his shoulder. It no longer mattered. He had learned that it was the smallness of people that filled him with wonder and tenderness, and the loneliness of that too.The world was filled with people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing so for a long time. Harold could no longer pass a stranger without a knowledge and a truth that everyone was the same, and also unique, and that his was the dilemma of being human.”

This introverted retiree in Great Britain becomes, in his way, a symbol for the times. A man trying to reconcile what his life should have been and what it became with what it is right now. A man like all of us who has experienced joy and disappointment though not perhaps in the quantities he would have liked. As Harold stumbles and picks himself up, as he provides solace to others while doubting his own abilities, he is a person we can both admire and feel sorry for. That, in itself, makes him a character of rareness.

This became for me the book of the moment. I cared about Harold. I even cared about his shrewish wife, who, once we  learned of her inner trials and tribulations, becomes a character to understand and sympathize with.. In the end perhaps that is the lesson of the book. No one is all anything, not good or bad. Easy characterizations are just that. They are not often truthful ones.

With The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry the author has written a book of fiction with the rare ability to make one care, to make one think, and to mostly wish these people truly existed. The truth is they do. We all know a Harold Fry.

So here we go with some ” Observations From the Couch.”

This Sunday The Walking Dead ends up Season Three in what we expect to be a climatic battle between Rick and his crew and those following the evil Governor. Season Three has been solid, ratings have been through the roof, but I am hoping that Season Four will find the group moving on from the prison as this storyline is about tapped out.

On April 7th Mad Men returns replacing the Zombies on AMC with those sixties advertising executives who drink and smoke in the office all day. I am not sure which group is more dangerous. At the end of last season Don Draper appeared to be about to jump off the marital bandwagon. While we never see previews of a new season we are told to expect this year to play out in 1968, we have already seen Roger taking Acid last year, one wonders how much the ” sixties” will invade the lives of the characters this year. One thing we do know, the show can always be counted on to be one of the best on any network.

This Sunday Game of Thrones returns on HBO. This is a fantastic series. Filmed in Iceland and Croatia the show is a cinematographic wonder. Based on the behemoth books of George R R Martin ( is Double R a fantasy novel thing, like Tolkien) the series, now in year three, has begat a seemingly endless cast, one with enough subplots to require diagrams and note-cards. In the end it is all about The Iron Throne and who retains it. The show is violent and full of sex, too much sex actually, but the excellence of the story covers it. The success of the series is a testament to the fact that geek culture becomes popular culture. In our house we do make an accommodation to the thick and confusing plot. We do not watch the show week by week, we watch in four or five episode weekends. For those of us who have not read the books it is the only way to keep all the characters straight. The effort is well worth it though, all the success the show has met with is well deserved.

The Mindy Project on Fox continues it’s strong first season this spring. Starring Mindy Kaling from The Office the main character is a young woman who is a partner in an obstetrics practice with a handsome young man. The staff at the practice at times makes the show The Office in the hospital. That is not a bad thing. The show is funny, sarcastic, and sweet all the same time. Despite a slow start in the ratings it has been renewed, if you have not tried it you should.

NBC had high hopes for 1600 Penn which, with a cast featuring Bill Pullman and Jenna Elfman, certainly had the pedigree for success. Placed on the formerly high flying Thursday night lineup the show has floundered to low ratings. Most have the show being cancelled this spring. Maybe this is an example of my odd sense of humor but I have watched this show and been a fan. Silly it is, realistic of a President’s family life it is not, but for me the show has been shortchanged. Here is hoping NBC gives it another try next fall.

About the only good thing that has happened for NBC this year has been the debut of the end of the world as we know it series Revolution. Created by JJ Abrams of Lost fame the show rarely misses, it is very well done. The networks inexplicable choice to remove the show for four months this past winter was, to me, a dangerous one. Trusting that the audience will find a show again, especially in it’s first year, is risky. For a network like NBC with few, if any, bonafide hits it was positively foolish. By all accounts however the return episode last Monday did garner strong ratings, this is a good sign for the faithfulness of the show’s fans. Another strong show you should be watching if you are not yet.

On The History Channel this Easter Sunday will wrap up it’s five part miniseries The Bible. This series has been stellar, earning the network ratings that have consistently beat the major networks. One wonders why a series dramatizing Bible stories that we all know and have known for our lifetimes would strike such a chord in the culture but this series has. It points out that, establishment elites scorn or not, there is a hunger and huge audience for both religeous and family friendly programming. The History Channel deserves great credit for both the fine production of and the commitment to airing this program.

The Voice might well be the hottest show on television these days. It’s  return on Monday could not come soon enough. At times the network has been finishing sixth and seventh in the ratings on a given night. For a major broadcast network this is an unbelievable level of failure. Fortunately The Voice shows no sign of losing it’s popularity. Consistently bettering the ratings of the fading American Idol The Voice is buoyed by it’s format, and especially by it’s exceptionally likeable hosts. On this go round judges C Lo Green and Christina Aguilera will not be with us. As both are recording and or touring to support their new albums they have been replaced by, two of our one named stars, Usher and Shakira. The commercials NBC had been running over the last month featuring the four judges driving down the road in a truck fighting over the radio station until they ended up on the shmaltzy ” Total Eclipse of the Heart” did a good job of preparing the audience for the change. The show appears not to have missed a beat. With Adam Levine and Blake Shelton anchoring the show it looks like it will continue to be a ratings beast. We watch all the singing shows in our house as my wife and daughter love them. By my judgement Shakira is much more likable than Aguilera while Usher might just be a bit too smug. My wife says one of the fun things about C Lo was seeing both what he was wearing and what kind of animal he had each week. One does not get the sense that Usher will possess the ability or desire to laugh at himself in the same way. We hope C Lo returns next fall.

A final note about some of the shows that have been reviewed recently. While we cannot say enough good things about The Bible our family left Vikings midway through the second episode. We might well have not given it enough of a chance but it seemed pretty apparent where the plot was going and Game of Thrones does it much better.  The Americans on FX has thus far been brilliant, one of the best shows on television, while the much ballyhooed Kevin Bacon Fox series The Following was dumped off our watch list after two episodes. The show has been renewed, some folks are still watching, but not us. Those  characters and that subject matter was no place I wanted to visit each week.

Next week we will have Part 2 where we will talk about Spring music, books, and movies.

Written and Directed by Academy Award for Best Director Nominee Jane Campion this series illustrates, for those few who still need it, that television is where the best stories are told. Filmed in New Zealand the show tells the story of Robin Griffin, a young woman who returns home to spend time with her Mother who has been diagnosed with cancer. Before we meet Robin however we see a young girl, we are later told she is 12, walk into a lake up to her shoulders. After being seen and pulled out by her schoolmistress it is discovered that she is with child.

Griffin, who we learn is a police investigator in a larger unnamed city, is brought in by the local police to help with this discovery. Taking charge she gets the men on the police force away from the girl to talk to her. Elisabeth Moss is a revelation in this role. With her Kiwi accent and body language matching her character perfectly she shows herself to be much more than that girl on Mad Men. The first time we see her character she is getting out of bed at her Mother’s house and she looks like Peggy after a very bad date. She is, we discover, haggard and confused over her Mother’s condition as well as her Mother’s new friend who is helping her through the ordeal.

The episode really picks up when the scene shifts to show us a couple of young twenty something men who appear to be a bit on the wild side. With skinhead type hair and tattoos on their neck, arms, and head they do not appear to be nice boys. After seeing some storage units being moved up onto a neighboring hill they call their father out of the house to tell him about it. Peter Mullen plays Matt Mitcham, a scowling, nasty, long haired, bad man who appears to have a strong interest in who is moving these storage units into place.

We learn that the units are being placed by a woman named GJ who has purchased the land for a sort of women’s commune. Played by Holly Hunter as a man hating, or at least man doubting, free spirit GJ hopes to lead her community of women to a new peace and understanding devoid of men.

All of this happens in the first twenty minutes. Over the next forty we see why Matt was so interested in the land, see a funny but dangerous confrontation between the women and the bad boys, and learn what Matt does when he feels like he has been double-crossed  by the local real estate agent,

Later we see Robin meet with the pregnant girl’s Mother while the local Police Captain returns the girl to her father. His reaction to her pregnancy is not what you would expect, or, perhaps considering she is a 12 year old pregnant girl, it is.

Already we can see that Robin has a past in this town, a story that will seep out over the next few weeks. One senses that she dreaded coming home and hoped to leave quickly, a connection she feels with the girl, seems to change all that.

The scenery in the show is as pretty as you will find. Some have compared the show to AMC’s The Killing, a series I did not like, while others have noted that the show is a strong reflection of Helen Mirren’s Prime Suspect. That is high praise indeed. I actually think that the show has quirks and characters, as well as scenery, that puts me to mind a bit of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. This show will not be so intentionally weird but there are certain similarities in the geography and introduction of characters.

With episodes two and three loaded in my Tivo I suspect I will know much more about where this series is going before I go to bed tonight. As my readers know I am not a fan of television shows with a dark subject matter, I left The Following after just two episodes, but Top of the Lake at this point appears like it will be about much more than what it initially seems.

With this series it becomes clear that we now have one more player in the ever increasing number of cable channels providing quality series that better anything you will find on the networks. The day is not coming, it is already here, when you are much better off to watch two or three episodes of one of these fantastic series than to go watch Hollywood’s latest over budget, under storied, movie at the cinema.

Top of the Lake airs on Sundance Channel at ten o’clock on Monday nights. Older episodes can be found online or on Sunday evenings. If you feel you are too far behind, never fear, Sundance will surely schedule a marathon of past episodes soon to allow those who hear the buzz about this show to catch up.

It is buzzworthy. This show gets a huge recommendation.

The first episode featured Norman played by Freddie Highmore and his Mother Norma played by Vera Farmiga moving from Arizona to Oregon upon the death of Norman’s father. They have purchased a run down hotel as a way to make the proceeds of his father’s will last longer and provide a regular income. Mrs. Bates is an attractive widow who seems to have just a little bit of a possessive streak when it comes to her son.

Norman gets quite a good bit of attention when he arrives at his new school, attractive girls talk to him, even visit him at home and spirit him away to the library. Momma Bates is none too thrilled about this. As a touch of modernity the Bates have purchased their new hotel in a foreclosure sale and, as they find out one afternoon, the previous owner is a local,  a good old boy, and he is none too pleased with their presence. While Norman sneaks out one night with his new friends Mr. Previous Owner pays a violent visit to Mrs. Bates which culminates with her killing him after he rapes her, an act Norman walks in on.  Clearly this is not the start they wanted in the town,

Does the show work? I guess it does. The Bates are attractive until they start killing people and hiding them in sheets in the bathtub. Everyone in the town seems either a little too friendly, or a little too nosy, but I suppose that might be true in many small towns.

For me the show is just not very pleasant. Assuming we believe Norman and his Mother are, or are on the way to becoming, psychopathic killers do we really want to visit them each week and see what progress they are making. Outside of that the violence in the show is fairly extreme, the rape scene was way too vivid for a program rated as it was for television consumption.

I am sure I am a bit prudish and after all these characters are based on a book and movie called Psycho. Perhaps this illustrates best of all the difference between the genius of Hitchcock and the lazy producer of today. Hitchcock showed you little and had you at the edge of your seat with suspense while the makers of this show, and others, show you everything and more than you want to see.

A&E said this show set records for them for the number of viewers for a show premiere. That might be the case but one must consider this is a network that features on not a few nights of the week a show called Duck Dynasty. I will not be watching Episode Two. I know how it all turns out.

Final Review for Bates Motel: D.   Don’t stay even one night.

Often when something is this hyped it cannot live up to the expectation set, in this case, though, the album succeeds on every level. Timberlake clearly has set his sights high, he does not just want to be a pop singer, he wants to be beyond the age bracket that loved him a decade ago in N’SYNC. Surprisingly, at least to me, he succeeds. The first single from the album called Suit and Tie made it clear that the singer wants to be beyond pop music, he wants, it seems, to be a cultural icon. Debuting the single on The Grammy Awards Timberlake made clear that stylistically if he could be anyone he would be Frank Sinatra, a singer that became a multi generational icon.

For me Suit and Tie is one of the weaker songs on the album, Not as catchy and with an ill inspired rap sequence from his friend Jay Z the song is far from great.

More successful are the songs where Timberlake tries to be neither Sinatra nor bring in the rap influences one can hear anywhere. When Timberlake brings his white soul talent to the strong influences of Prince, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson and even Barry White he records some incredibly strong music.

The songs Strawberry Bubblegum begins with a Barry White intro and, with an ear worm chorus, fast becomes irresistible. Even better is Spaceship Coupe in which Timberlake sings ” that there is only room for two, and we can land and make love on the moon.” The song can easily be taken as a thirty year update of Little Red Corvette. Prince influences abound on the album but on this particular song it is a front and center right down to the mini guitar solo and the sounds that could be interpreted as a young lady feeling very good ala Prince’s Darling Nikki. Dig out your 1999 album, it seems clear Justin has.

Also catchy enough to drive you crazy is Let the Groove In with a chorus that puts me to mind of Micheal Jackson’s Wanna Be Starting Something. It is all one can do not to say Mama Say Mama San…any Micheal fan will get that reference. This shows Timberlake is in pretty special company with his sound and his influences.

Timberlake does not want to be limited, he said rather than making radio cuts and expanding them after the fact for extended play dance tracks that, on this album, he would release the full cuts and then cut them down for singles when necessary. Self indulgent it may be but so is chocolate and we never mind partaking.

Will Timberlake be the next Sinatra? That seems unlikely. He has, however, put a significant distance between himself and the other singers of his generation. If someone told me during his boy band days that I would one day write such a glowing review of his talent I would have bet the house against it, another example that one should never judge a performer too early. Timberlake is a multifaceted, widely talented, entertainer and a star in every way.

The first single shows a great deal of what Musgraves has to say. Talking about the restrictions of small town life and the need to jump out into the world she describes a merry-go round of love in which the players stay the same while the couples change. Everyone in a small town finds a distraction to hide the misery such as when she sings “Mama’s hooked on Mary Kay, Brothers hooked on Mary J, Daddy’s hooked on Mary two doors down.” With her sweet voice it sometimes seems like Taylor Swift has become even more depressed but it works and works well.

On the opening track Silver Lining we are told that to find a silver lining there has to be a cloudy day. A catchy little song with many similar examples this song seems destined for radio play. Blowin Smoke is told from the point of view of a waitress who admits that she and all her friends lie to each other to make themselves feel better about their lives. It includes a keeper of a line when she sings of a friend ” who hasn’t lost that baby weight, that baby’s about to graduate….from college.” That is a pretty clever line.

Speaking of love affairs gone wrong on I Miss You she admits she has everything and the sky is blue but ” I miss you.” Contrast that with her words to an ex lover that ” when your drunk or it’s late or your missing me like hell to just” as the title of the song suggests ” Keep it to yourself.”

As great as the album is, and it is a wonderful, the song getting all the buzz and, in conservative country music circles, a little blowback is Follow Your Arrow. Again focusing on the restrictions of small town life or the words of small minded people anywhere she suggests you should do what you want because you only live once and “your damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” When in the chorus she tells a young girl to ” Make lots of noise, kiss lots of boys, kiss lots of girls if that’s what your into.” she pushes a button that artists as popular as Garth Brooks have bumped into. Gay friendly is not a likely scenario on monolithic country radio. To push it further she goes on to sing that ” If the straight and narrow gets a little too straight  to roll up a joint..or don’t ” Musgraves has a great voice and could be called a more mature Taylor Swift if you wanted. Her lyrics end that discussion pretty quickly.

This is a great album. One even supposes that their could be some crossover potential as the music has been greeted in wide circles as something special. Katy Perry for one has been excitedly promoting her new favorite singer. For those of us in Bangor Miss Musgraves will be opening for Kenny Chesney later this summer. There is a good chance that by the time the show arrives many who bought tickets not knowing who she was will be sure to arrive early enough to enjoy her act. This is a singer on the verge of breaking out into widespread success.

The book tells the the story of Alan Clay. Clay is a 54 year old career salesman who has fallen on hard times. From Jonathan Franzen to Dave Eggers and everyone in between it seems that there are no characters in modern American literature that are confident and well. Perhaps that is because the truth is that a full bodied success is not as interesting. We like are characters to be broken, it makes us feel better about ourselves.

Alan Clay has problems. He is divorced and his ex wife is the definition of a shrew. His daughter attends a tony and expensive college and he loves her fiercely, wants to provide for her, but, with his financial setbacks, he does not have enough money for her next semester’s college tuition.

In an attempt to fix all this Alan has taken a job leading a consulting team for a company named Reliant. The company sends the team to Saudi Arabia to, hopefully, gain a contract to provide all things technological for a new city the King is building.

When Alan arrives in The Kingdom he is the leader of a group of younger workers who do not think too much of him. He knows that he gained the job primarily due to a previous friendship with the King’s nephew, the younger workers do as well. Upon arriving in Jeddah much of their time is spent waiting around doing nothing. With a large building mostly unoccupied they are placed in a tent outside the office building to set up their presentation. They have no internet thus making it all but impossible to begin their work. Making things even worse they are told their is no timetable for when the King will arrive for the presentation, they will learn of his pending arrival when he arrives, no advance notice will be given. Still for Alan all the downtime has advantages. He meets a woman from Denmark working in the office building next to his luxurious tent, a Saudi Doctor who helps Alan deal with a ball sized growth at the top of his spine and most importantly a local man named Yousef who becomes Alan’s unofficial tour guide to all things Saudi.

It seems that everything in Saudi Arabia is a mystery, nothing is as it seems and while everyone espouses the rules no one follows them. As Alan spends his days doing little more than waiting on the arrival of The King he reflects on his life, his marriage, his relationship with his daughter, and his general feelings of incompetence in dealing with the world. As he becomes friends with Yousef and as Yousef becomes his wingman he meets his new friends father, sees his home village, and even helps strangers met along the road build a cement wall. An act that of itself that seems of little import but to Alan has overwhelming significance, something lasting on this mission of dubious purpose.

The turning point for Alan and his relationship with his new friend comes when he goes on a wolf hunt with Yousef and some of the villagers from his hometown. The wolf is a menace to a local farmers sheep and Alan, feeling thrilled to be part of a group, is sure he will be the one to bring it down.

Soon thereafter Alan arrives at work to discover that the King is on his way.  Having had power finally for a couple of days the presentation is done and everything goes perfectly. Alan soon learns, however, that in Saudi Arabia nothing is as it seems and in everything there are layers of the onion that you never know exist.

The book was good, one felt for the characters. Alan is likable and recognizable for many of us. I felt that the relationship that Alan has with his father is very easy to relate to. Alan’s decisions in his corporate success have been symptomatic of the withering and hollowing  of American business. His father, a long time union man, has never failed to point out to him that Alan and his companies planted the seeds of their own destruction when they attempted to make more and increasing profits by abandoning both their workers and their principles. It is a a cautionary tale for any businesses that today send jobs overseas and considers the lessening of labor costs as the one and only key to success.

The ending is not perfect, one looking for a crisp, clean, perfect resolution will be disappointed. It does however fit with the story as a whole. Eggers writes very well, his point of view is discernible, the character of Alan is well drawn and far from one dimensional. There are a whole generation of Americans that have and are living Alan’s life experience in today’s world of globalization. While reading Alan’s story might not be pleasant it will certainly seem familiar. This book surprised me, it is much better than I expected it to be.

You might well have not heard of either of these artists, neither has achieved widespread success, both bands, however, have produced albums well worth your making the effort to acquaint yourself with them. With the music industry and what is left of radio so fragmented one has to sometimes make an effort to find the music that is worth hearing.

Son Volt was formed in the mid nineties when the seminal alt country band Uncle Tupelo split up. Lead singer Jay Farrar started Son Volt while Jeff Tweedy went on to form the critically acclaimed Wilco. If you are like most people you might well have not heard of either of these bands, those in the music industry will tell you, however, that Tweedy and Farrar are two of the most talented singers and songwriters in music today.

Led by Farrar, Son Volt has released an album of modest ambition that provides a wonderful soundtrack for a sunny afternoon. Where in the past the band has been known to abuse their guitars a bit and make you move your feet, on the new album Honky Tonk all the boys want to do is chill. This makes for some very pretty songs, but nothing that you can really sing along too. The first single, if you listen to an alternative country radio station or more likely XM’s Outlaw Country, is Seawall. Farrrar’s voice is comforting, but could not be called pretty, as he sings that ” there’s a gulf that flows between, and the sea walls wearing down. One suspects we are not talking about water here. On Tears of Change we are told that ” in a world that’s slowly dying, there’s no denying when love walks astray.”  The album is pleasant to listen to, I think Farrar is very talented and these songs are, if not tap your foot happy, well crafted. The album’s weakness is that in having such a consistent sound there is nothing that makes any of these songs stand out from one another. For those that enjoy Wilco or another influential alternative country band, The Jayhawks, you will find this album right in your wheelhouse. What Son Volt has not produced is music that is going to open the floodgates with new fans.

Biffy Clyro on the other hand have, with the release of their sixth album Opposites, made it known that they hope to become the next big thing. Led by lead singer Simon Neil the band mixes many influences, if one called them a mix of Snow Patrol and Foo Fighters they would not be far off. Opposites is, in fact, a double album, and in listening to it over the last couple of days I can tell you it is fantastic. In reading about the band I noted that they have in the past released a live album from a concert stop at Wembley Stadium that they headlined a couple of years ago. For those of us who remember Live Aid we know that a band that can fill that stadium must be pretty popular. While that level of success is unlikely stateside a look at Alternative, Modern, and College Rock radio charts tells us that this band is already well known in those circles.

With the current single Black Chandelier playing on Alt radio Neil sings that ” you left my heart like an abandoned car, old and worn and no use at all, ” but proclaims ” that he used to be free.” This album is loaded with tracks that are radio friendly.  On Opposite Neil tells a girl ” you are in love with a shadow that won’t come back” and urges her that ” you need to be with someone else.”

The Foo Fighters style guitars contrasting with arena anthem ready lyrics means that Biffy is ready to become well known in America this summer. On Trumpet or Tap Neil snarls out the lyrics  ” to prove what I mean to you, show what I mean to you.”  The single Biblical sounds as catchy as anything you can find on the radio, almost Dashboard Confessional like, as he urges a love to ” make this biblical.” On Accident without Emergency we are told he is scared of the light and hates the end of the darkness each morning. Perhaps the band can work this song into the next vampire movie that comes out.

This is a big sound and the album is worth finding and listening to. In a music environment that is as unoriginal as it has ever been Biffy Clyro will not leave you bored. With a double album of new songs this is a great introduction to a band that both deserves and seems poised to breakout this year.

Son Volt: Honky Tonk   B-

Biffy Clyro: Opposite    A-

In our next music review we will be talking about the new album from rising country singer Kacey Musgraves who, incidentally, will be an opening act when Kenny Chesney plays here in Bangor later this summer.

Eric Clapton, he of the forty plus years making music, has today released his latest effort, the aptly titled Old Sock. We have not heard much from Clapton in the last few years, he turns 68 later this month, perhaps he was taking lots of naps. Whatever he was doing the rest has worked as he has produced a solid album that includes ten covers, significant reggae influence, and of course a few guitar solos.

Ever since covering Bob Marley’s I Shot the Sheriff in the seventies Clapton has been interested in reggae and on this album he goes down to the islands with the opening track Further on Down the Road. Till Your Well Runs Dry, Your One and Only Man, and Every Little Thing also have Clapton’s still strong voice moving over the familiar backing track. While these songs are interesting and certainly could provide a good backdrop for your first spring barbeque this spring something is missing. Having the right beat is not all that is necessary for a reggae song, Clapton sounds like he is reading lines in a script, no joy can be felt.

Clapton goes far into the wayback machine for his version of All of Me, yes really, All of Me. Lack of inspiration seems to be catching, is that really the best song he could think of to cover? More positive is Clapton’s take on the Leadbelly classic Goodnight Irene. This seems to be one of the few times that he is where he would like to be.

A couple tracks on the album work quite well. Gotta Get Over features solid guitar work, not “Clapton is God” worthy guitar work, those days are long gone, but the song would easily fit on one of Clapton’s late eighties albums such as Journeyman. Also notable is the familiar Clapton sound in his version of the classic Still Got the Blues, though the song is reduced in it’s intensity by too much piano and not enough guitar. Honestly after the intro guitar work when the vocal kicks in backed by piano the first thing came to mind was Billy Vera. Not, I am sure, the sound he was looking for.

If, after reading this review, it seems interesting is too much praise for an album I do not have a great deal of good things to say about I suppose I chose that word because Old Sock sounds like the album of the year compared to latest effort by Bon Jovi.

The problem with Bon Jovi of course is that they have, for the most part, outlasted their audience. A shocking high number of their fans have moved on to the ” new ” country music, something the band all but acknowledged with their move toward a more countrified sound in the last decade. Having not met success with that effort the band now is back to their usual post 2000′s Crush album sound. That album, we should remember, was a comeback of sorts from a period of non relevance in the late nineties. The sound clicked at that time, I remember relating to the track Older at the time. Now, however, even though the songs themselves are fine, they are totally forgettable.

On the title track What About You the band wants to be on our side, Bon Jovi wants to relate to you, and maybe they can be, perhaps we just don’t hear them anymore. Pictures of You sounds like it could have been a hit twenty years ago while Amen is a typical hold up your lighter at the concert song. Of course no one does that anymore, cell phones have replaced them. No one has replaced Bon Jovi yet however.

Like the Clapton album a couple tracks are worthwhile on their own merit. I’m With You is a very strong song, Jon is in fine voice, the song could easily have fit on my personal favorite Bon Jovi album Keep the Faith. We even get to hear Richie Sambora stretch out a bit on his guitar. On What’s Left of Me we hear about a Persian Gulf Veteran who comes home to find” another war.” He loses his house, his car, and the opportunity he expected. The band wants us to know they connect with that union worker and that teacher. It all feels, despite the best of intentions, a little too earnest.

For any band that has been around as long as Bon Jovi late career success will only come inasmuch as fans relate new music to favorite earlier albums. Certainly there is plenty here to remind you of earlier Bon Jovi work. Still, for me, it does not work. Same Sound, Different Decade is what I would call it. I like the band, saw them back in the early nineties and it was a great show. I am sure I would go if our friends at The Waterfront Concert Series could get them to Bangor. At that show I am sure that few of these songs would be played. It is a surety that the boys in the band know the hard truth of being a band twenty five years in, the new music, and this goes from the Stones to Springsteen, never replicates the success of the old. Bon Jovi’s new album does not alter this fact.

There has been some great music released this week, I will be back later in the week to tell you about these more successful efforts.