The Rabbit Room

SSv Interview: Hem

[In the summer of 2007, I launched a music site called Stereo Subversion for the sole purpose of helping to promote and explore what I termed "Meaningful Music." The goal was to highlight artists crafting substantive content and/or imaginative concepts. Six years later, the same is true. Here's a recent interview that illustrates just that.]

For those who tried to read between the lines on Hem’s latest album, Departure and Farewell, you likely hit the nail on the head. Over the last decade-plus, the Brooklyn-based band has released several beautiful folk albums to great acclaim. But everything has a life cycle, and Hem nearly completed their own.

Death, it seems, was a necessary consideration to bring new life, and Departure and Farewell is a goodbye in name only. Hem’s Gary Maurer and Dan Messe recently sat down with Stereo Subversion to discuss the latest album and how they nearly walked away from it all.

SSv: It’s been a long time between records, what has happened in that time?

Dan: Well, I think what happened was, we were thinking Hem had run its course after Twelfth Night(2009’s record of instrumental accompaniment to a Shakespearean production) and were just interested in wrapping things up in a big bow. And so we decided to call the recordDeparture and Farewell. Really making something that was a good summation of our career. And in the course of making this “ending,” I actually started using pills, I actually got addicted to them. And the band completely exploded. I basically poisoned the entire well where we couldn’t even finish the final record. We were just going to walk away at one point. That’s true right Gary?

Gary: Yes, clearly for several months [the record] was not going to get done.

Dan: And it languished like that until I hit bottom and asked for help, then the band started to heal. And all of the sudden there was a rebirth, not just in terms of my own health but also in terms of the love we have for each other and the love we have for the music we make together and how grateful we are. It started out as a swan song and became a rebirth.

SSv: Is it strange or painful to make this a part of the new record’s story, or are you comfortable talking about it?

Dan: I’m not comfortable talking about it at all, but it’s such a part of the album. We write songs that are not confessional but they are autobiographical. So we tend to write in metaphor about experiences that we go through in our life. We could have taken this part out and just been vague about it: ‘We had troubles and we got over it.’[Laughs]

Gary: It would have been easy to make up a whole other story because there actually have been a lot of other changes since (2006’s) Funnel Cloud. We could have just pretended, like Dan said.

Dan: I think in the spirit of this second chance, it really is a miracle, and I wanted to honor that. And also, you are able to recover—or find recovery at all—when you are at a point when you’re completely hopeless and lost everything. And you want to share the story so that someone else might hear it and find their own way back. You feel responsible for other people going through it. So we just decided, as a band, it would be ok to talk about.

You can read the rest of the interview over at Stereo Subversion.

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Episode 40: Tales of the Fall (Part 2)

At Hutchmoot 2012 Andrew Peterson and Travis Prinzi led a session titled “Tales of the Fall.” Here in part two, Andrew discusses the ways in which sadness plays an important part in our literature and our lives.

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Discussion Week 5: “The Fiery Siringo”

Note: If you’re running behind schedule on your reading, no worries. Feel free to comment on prior posts as you catch up. There’s no reason the conversation can’t continue!

Discussion Introduction
Week 1: “A Thousand a Day”
Week 2: “The Old Desperate”
Week 3: “Jack Waits”
Week 4: “The 101″

Welcome to Week 5—“The Fiery Siringo”—In which we witness a showdown.

“And so it came down to a farmhouse. As it so often does.”

Siringo and Becket have a complicated relationship.  They are simultaneously archenemies and closely-tied traveling companions.

1) In what other stories is there an antagonist who reminds you of Siringo? A protagonist who reminds you of Becket? Archenemies with similar dynamics?

After exposing Becket’s lack of attention to detail when they encountered the boy (whose father had promised to take him to the ocean) in Ingersoll, Siringo chides, “Well, heavens, Becket! No wonder your medicine’s all dried up.”—p.166

And then in the following paragraph, Becket proceeds to describe in great detail the plants, homes, and people he encounters in the town.

2) What do you think Enger was trying to achieve with the juxtaposition of Siringo’s comment and Becket’s astute observations?

“That’s the failure of most people,” he declared. “They don’t want the bad news. Everything’s got to be good news! So they’ll subscribe to the Proverbs, which feel nice and hopeful, and ignore Ecclesiastes, where old Sol is wiser than ever and has finally figured out what all those instructions of his are actually worth.” Siringo—p.166

“All the same,” I ventured, “since we haven’t a choice but can only make the best of things as given, I would rather live among people who try to uphold the Proverbs.” Becket—P. 177

3)  What do you make of Siringo’s take on Ecclesiastes? Do you think it’s accurate?

4)  How do these two viewpoints set up an important dichotomy between Siringo and Becket? Do you see similarities between the two men?

“Most men are hero and devil. All men.”—p.190

5)   Where do you see both hero and devil in Siringo, Becket, Glendon, and Hood? Can you think of a believable story in which this principle isn’t accurate?

“Twenty people are enough to make a legend.”—p.210

6)  Where in the book does the presence (or absence) of a crowd become relevant? What other factors contribute to making a legend?

Bonus question:

Where did the title “So Brave, Young, and Handsome” come from?

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One Minute Review: The Great Gatsby

This is the One Minute Review of The Great Gatsby. Baz Luhrmann brings his unique sensibility to one of the great American novels. Does he bring Gatsby to life, or suck the life right out of it? After you’ve checked out this review, got to www.OneMinuteReview.com for reviews of Iron Man 3, Mud, and much more.

One Minute Review: The Great Gatsby from Thomas McKenzie on Vimeo.

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Jellybean Highfive and the Enthusiastic Youth Pastor

Jellybean Highfive stood in front of the back of a room, his back to the front of the wall. Directionally near to him sat a youth pastor on a stool.

“It’s going to be epic,” the youth pastor said, raising his eyebrows, which were thin and trimmed and raised.

“Really?” Jellybean asked interrogatively.

“Fo’ sho’ bro,” he said, grinning sideways and scrunching up his eyes beneath a wide-brimmed hat featuring a baseball logo of a baseball team called the Yankees.

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