6A — Monday, November 16, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

MUSIC COLUMN

Piecing together 
shattered genius

J

eff Buckley had the 
kind of voice that could 
save a life. Armed often 

with just a guitar and a set of 
beautiful, angelic vocal chords, 
he could 
inhabit and 
improve 
upon other 
artists’ songs 
like nobody 
else. From 
Dylan to Van 
Morrison to 
Nina Simone, 
Buckley 
would strum 
his strings and stretch out his 
favorite compositions, turning 
tracks like “Sweet Thing” 
into a long meditation on the 
phrase, “We will walk and talk 
in gardens all misty wet with 
rain,” moving his voice up and 
down its register and scatting 
with breathless emotion, 
seemingly losing himself 
completely in the music and 
becoming not a performer but 
an artistic presence, someone 
who doesn’t just entertain you 
but stops you in your tracks 
and invades your psyche. He 
commands total attention and 
awe with what feel like the 
simplest of actions, reaffirming 
just why we care about music.

“Hallelujah” is, of course, 

Buckley’s most famous 
recording, but personally, I’ll 
never forget the first time I 
heard him cover Bob Dylan’s 
“Just Like a Woman.” While 
Dylan’s original is dripping 
with sexist sarcasm, one of 
many songs of his that serve 
as unbelievably coarse five-
minute-long insults, Buckley 
turns it into a crushing lament 
— not a self-righteous rant 
like Dylan but more of a sad-
if-hurtful, quietly lashing out 
meditation on why he and his 
partner should end it. Right 
at the song’s climax (“Ain’t 
it clear that I just can’t fit / I 
believe it’s time for us to quit”), 
Buckley stretches out that first 
crying “I” like he’s jumping 
out of an airplane, somehow 
releasing his parachute just in 
time, setting himself up for a 
perfect landing, those stabbing 
last words. It just might be the 

most gut-wrenching break-up 
song of all time.

Buckley’s “Just Like a 

Woman” has been available 
live for some time on what’s 
called the “Legacy Edition” 
of his EP Live at Sin-é (for 
my money the one absolutely 
essential Buckley album, more 
so than Grace). But as a studio 
recording it’s finally getting an 
official release on what’s going 
to be called You and I, an early 
demos record coming out next 
year.

I really think that everybody 

who wants to should be able 
to discover Buckley’s “lost” 
recordings, the ones that I 
personally just love so much, 
but I really can’t help feeling 
uneasy about this new album. 
It’s coming right on the heels 
of Montage of Heck: The 
Home Recordings, a newly 
released album credited to 
Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain. Since 
he committed suicide in 1994, 
Cobain’s memory has endured 
the ignominies of his private 
journals being published for 
mass consumption, his home 
movies being scrutinized in 
documentaries and endless 
books speculating about his 
personal life. We’ve already 
seen the vast catalog of 
unreleased Nirvana tracks 
come out of the vaults on the 
With the Lights Out box set, 
and this “new” collection of 
Cobain’s home recordings feels 
pointless and exploitative, one 
more cash-in on a dead man’s 
legacy.

More and more record 

labels seem to be clearing 
out the vaults of old bands 
with nostalgic appeal, and 
I worry that this might be 
coming at the expense of 
young, up-and-coming artists. 
This isn’t exactly a brand 
new phenomenon — The 
Beatles’ Anthology came out 
20 years ago — but more and 
more artists that have been 
long bootlegged, like The 
Beach Boys and Bob Dylan, 
have spent the later parts of 
their careers releasing old 
unreleased recordings, often 
to commercial success and 
acclaim. We’re now seeing this 
trend expand to include bands 

that don’t have anywhere near 
the name recognition as these 
legends. Nineties alt-rockers 
Pavement are in the middle 
of a series called The Secret 
History, pairing old albums 
with collections of radio 
sessions and live recordings 
from the era, as well as songs 
that weren’t good enough to 
make the cut the first time 
around. But since Pavement 
already has a built-in audience, 
I suppose a makeshift record 
like this is easier to sell than a 
fresh debut album from a young 
garage-rock band still looking 
to develop its sound.

Obviously, there are 

superfans who look forward to 
buying all these artifacts, and 
I can’t blame them for that. 
There’s something that can be 
sickly fascinating about all the 
“what ifs” of music history. 
What if Brian Wilson hadn’t 
had a mental breakdown and 
The Beach Boys had pulled off 
Smile? What if Nick Drake had 
been famous in his time? What 
if Biggie and 2Pac hadn’t been 
shot?

So yeah, I’m going to listen 

to the new Buckley stuff. Even 
though the first preview of 
You and I, a cover of “Everyday 
People,” is disappointingly 
bad fit for Buckley’s somewhat 
funk-less style, you never know 
what secret greatness the 
record might hold. As uneasy 
as I feel about the potential 
exploitation of artists and the 
swindling of fans who can’t 
contain their appetites for 
more songs from their heroes, 
rarities and vault-clearing 
releases can lead to the public 
discovering some incredible old 
music and filling in the stories 
of legendary enigmas. We buy 
up and listen to boxed sets of 
full recording sessions, discs 
of unreleased tracks, because 
we want to piece together 
shattered genius. We want to 
imagine the unknown and solve 
the puzzle that could show us 
the greatest album of all time.

Theisen is listening to 

Jeff Buckley box sets. To 

reaffirm his coolness, e-mail 

ajtheis@umich.edu.

ADAM 

THEISEN

We want to 
imagine the 
unknown and 

solve the puzzle.

Buckley 

commands your 
total attention 

and awe.

TV REVIEW
Bold Bob and Dave

By MATT BARNAUSKAS

Daily Arts Writer

From 1995-1998, the sketch 

comedy series “Mr. Show with 
Bob and David” aired on HBO. 
During 
its 

tenure, 
“Mr. 

Show” housed 
and 
devel-

oped 
some 

of the most 
significant 
and 
popular 

personalities 
in 
entertain-

ment, 
including 
Jack 
Black 

(“School of Rock”), Sarah Sil-
verman (“The Sarah Silver-
man Program”) and Mary Lynn 
Rajskub (“24”), among others. 
And perhaps the greatest con-
tributions were the talents of 
the titular duo, Bob Odenkirk 
and David Cross. Both prolific 
voices, Odenkirk now leads the 
“Breaking Bad” spinoff “Better 
Call Saul,” while Cross is best 
known for his role as the oblivi-
ous Tobias Fünke on “Arrested 
Development.”

Now, thanks to Netflix, the 

influential series returns under 
the shortened title “W/ Bob and 
David.” Presented with an expe-
rienced hand that comes with 
17 years of personal and profes-
sional development, the show 
brings back the influential, fast-
paced comedy that defined its 
earlier run. The new episodes, 
like their classic counterparts, 
comfortably edge into the risky, 
absurd and offensive.

At the core of “W/ Bob and 

David” ’s success are the well-
placed segues that establish a 
distinct flow between the vari-
ous, interlocking sketches, which 
utilize both live and pre-filmed 
elements. Directed by the expe-
rienced team of Keith Truesdell 
(“Jimmy Kimmel Live”) and 
Jason Woliner (“The Last Man 
On Earth”), “W/ Bob and David” 
balances its formats well, guid-
ing viewers relatively seamlessly 
into each new segment.

“Episode One” puts this skill 

on display as it opens with a doc-
tor telling Mike (Paul F. Tomp-
kins, “BoJack Horseman”) that 

he needs to stop eating red meat. 
After a cut to credits, Odenkirk 
and Cross emerge in front of the 
audience from a time machine/
portable toilet as they learn the 
consequences of using a “real-
time machine” as opposed to a 
“real time machine” (hyphens 
are tricky). After some explana-
tion, Cross decides to use the toi-
let function of the machine and, 
once finished, walks seamlessly 
into a new sketch.

The latest segment, which 

takes place over a card game, 
details the ambitious New Year’s 
resolutions made by a group of 
middle-aged friends. Among the 
dreams of becoming a director, 
a judge and the Pope is Mike’s 
humble goal to change his diet. In 
contrast to the universal support 
his friends receive, Mike is met 
with rejection as one buddy says, 
“You can’t learn to not like some-
thing.” The statement proves 
prophetic as the friends reinvent 
themselves and Mike gives into 
temptation. These success sto-
ries pave the way for the rest of 
the episode, providing key transi-
tional elements. Odenkirk’s Pope 
Judah advertises for a Kosher 
delivery service while the other 
characters appear in some way 
or the other throughout the sub-
sequent sketches. This helps to 
craft underlying premises that 
often mock those in positions of 
authority or influence.

The proper implementation 

of these segues and recurring 
characters turn a collection of 

sketches into a cohesive whole 
and provide the strongest epi-
sodes. “Episode Three” has the 
most trouble establishing these 
initial connections and struggles 
to find an early voice. The indi-
vidual parts are funny, but they 
have trouble coming together 
into a single voice as opposed to 
the other episodes.

“Episode Four,” for instance, 

sheds a light on parenting and 
how it can go awry. Cross’s 
mother frustrates her son by 
comparing his accomplishments 
to his slacker brother Donny 
(also played by Cross) on the 
faux-reality 
show 
“Amazing 

Moms,” which claims, “A child 
in jail is a hug waiting to be 
set free.” Meanwhile, a pair of 
conservative Christian parents 
rejects their son after he claims 
Hell isn’t real and that God lets 
everyone into Heaven — even 
monsters like Adolf Hitler and 
Jeffrey Dahmer.

Whether it’s tackling reli-

gion, slavery or the c-word, 
“W/ Bob and David” attacks all 
subjects with experienced con-
fidence. Odenkirk, Cross and 
many of their collaborators are 
industry mainstays, and this 
confidence translates into seam-
less, uncompromising comedic 
attempts. Like most sketch com-
edy, not everything is perfect, 
but “W/ Bob and David” main-
tains the sharp comedic edge 
of “Mr. Show” while serving as 
a reminder as to why Bob and 
David were so influential.

B+

W/ Bob 
and Dave

Netflix

NETFLIX

Bob and Dave get ANUSTART.

NEW MEDIA NOTEBOOK
#PrayForParis’s gap

By SAM ROSENBERG

Daily Arts Writer

In 2015 alone, our world has 

faced a series of violent outbreaks 
and conflicts, affecting innocent 
people on both a national and 
global scale. But even in these 
moments 
of 
darkness, 
our 

society 
has 
stood 
together, 

especially after the tragedy that 
struck Paris last Friday in what 
became the deadliest attack 
against France since World War 
II. With 132 civilians murdered 
and hundreds more wounded 
by ISIS terrorists, the attacks 
in Paris demonstrated another 
devastating 
blow 
against 

humanity. This was also the 
country’s second major terrorist 
attack this year, following the 
Charlie 
Hebdo 
shooting 
in 

early January. As horrific and 
despicable as these attacks were, 
what surprised me the most 
was how viral the attacks had 
become online.

Within the 24 hours of the 

terrorist attacks in Paris on 
Friday, people from all over the 
world showed an outpouring 
of support for the French 
on 
virtually 
every 
social 

media outlet. Twitter users 
tweeted their thoughts with 
the 
hashtag 
#PrayForParis; 

Instagram flooded with the 
now-circulating 
symbol 
of 

the Eiffel Tower attached to a 
peace sign; Snapchat created 
a filter with “Pray for Paris” 
scrawled in French and in 
English over a red, white and 
blue background; many people 
on my Facebook feed, including 
myself, have overlaid the colors 
of the French flag on their 
profile pictures. I was fascinated 
by how rapidly everyone showed 
their solidarity with the people 
of Paris. And while it’s uplifting 
to see everyone stand together 

with France in such a timely 
manner, it’s imperative that our 
society also recognizes the other 
atrocities around the world that 
the media has unfortunately 
neglected to publicize.

While 
scrolling 
through 

my newsfeed, I happened to 
find a report from Mic.com on 
numerous 
suicide 
bombings 

in Beirut, Lebanon that killed 
43 and injured 239 this past 
Thursday. In addition to that, 
I found another story about a 
recent instance of a terrorist 
attack in Baghdad, where a 
suicide bomber had killed at least 
19 people at a funeral in a mosque. 
In April, a group of al-Shabab 
militants killed 147 people at 
Garissa University in Kenya. 
Considering how much attention 
the Paris attacks received, it 
felt somewhat discriminatory 
that the media responded more 
quickly to attacks in Paris than in 
Beirut, Baghdad and Kenya. Does 
this mean that the media bases 
its focus solely on how drastic the 
situation is, where the location of 
the situation is and how many 
casualties and injuries there are?

It’s easy for people to simply 

dismiss the strife and brutality 
occurring 
in 
third-world 

countries 
because 
we 
have 

become so desensitized to the 
constant radical violence and 
terrorism in those places. It 
also makes sense that people 

respond more heavily toward 
the attacks in Paris, most likely 
because France hasn’t endured 
as 
many 
extreme 
terrorist 

attacks as Beirut, Baghdad and 
Kenya. However, this shouldn’t 
be the kind of groupthink our 
society employs in our everyday 
lives. No matter who the victim 
is, people are people, regardless 
of what region, race or ethnicity 
they belong to. The murdered 
innocents in Kenya, Baghdad 
and 
Beirut 
matter 
just 
as 

much as any of the murdered 
innocents in Paris.

In 
terms 
of 
how 
these 

events integrate into social 
media, would it make sense 
for Facebook to also have a 
Lebanese flag overlay to show 
solidarity for the victims in 
Beirut? Or possibly create a 
Snapchat filter for the Kenyan 
students who perished? I’m not 
entirely sure. But it wouldn’t 
hurt to write a status about 
Beirut, Baghdad and Kenya 
on Facebook, create a hashtag 
on Twitter or at least engage 
people in discussions about 
these kinds of atrocities. While 
social media helps connects us 
to others around the world, we 
need to remind ourselves that 
it also manipulates our cultural 
understanding and outlets like 
Facebook and Twitter tend to 
capitalize on these events. As 
Americans, we are only limited 
to what we perceive outside the 
country through what we see 
online, on television and on our 
mobile devices. To stand united 
as a world against inhumane 
acts of evil, we must understand 
and acknowledge the people 
who are also being affected by 
the same kind of evil. Once we 
achieve that, then our world 
can hope to live as one truly 
interconnected, peaceful and 
loving society.

Social 

media raises 
awareness, but 
manipulates us.

I can’t blame 
the superfans 

for buying these 

box sets.

