King of Spain's "Motions"

Another great surprise, the King of Spain's upcoming All I Did Was Tell Them The Truth And They Thought It Was Hell is reminding me of Ride, Swervedriver, Swirlies, the Church...all on a very limited home budget. It's out August 28 on New Granada Records.

Songwriter Matt Slate says of "Motions," the first single and clear standout:

“It’s attempting to find meaning in life amongst the monotony and mundaneness of daily existence. We get into patterns as we are required to perform the same tasks and behaviors on a daily basis. Sometimes it’s difficult, albeit not impossible, to not get bogged down with this. The song is about these feelings, and how they are a road block, keeping us from experiencing and enjoying life.”

"Motions"

We went to two staged reading-ish productions last night at Dartmouth, part of NY Theater Workshop's summer theater program. The first was a very funny one-man take on Joe Papp's battle with Robert Moses to stage Shakespeare in the Park called "This Blessed Plot." The second was a kind of August Wilson-ish ensemble piece called "Paradise Blue", set in a jazz club in Detroit...both were quite good in their ways, be interesting to see whether either shows up in a larger venue. (NY Theater Workshop did early versions of "Rent" and, more recently, the musical "Once" and "Peter and the Starcatchers.")