Mountain Views News          Saturday, June 7, 2014

Mountain Views-News Saturday, June 7, 2014 
B2 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Mountain Views-News Saturday, June 7, 2014 
B2 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT 
Strand Of Oaks 

– “Goshen ‘97” – 

Philadelphia musician 

Timothy Showalter 
who goes by Strand Oaks is set to release his 
fourth LP, “Heal,” on June 24th, 2014. 

The first single, “Goshen ‘97” is a complete 
departure of his previous material of acoustic, 
folk-rock jams. The song explodes right from 
the beginning with a thrashing drumbeat and 
intense guitar work. J. Mascis from Dinosaur 
Jr. supplies the superb guitar work. In previous 
themes, Showalter explored imaginary scenarios 
such as songs about giants to taking vengeance 
on John Belushi’s drug dealer. However with 
“Heal,” the theme is rooted within his own entity. 
His lyrics are reflective, but overt. It’s a powerful 
jam from start to finish. It surely would satisfy 
anyone looking for a good old-fashioned rock 
song that all appear to be lost in this hazy fog of 
DJs, synthesizer fanatics. 

Blackbird Blackbird – “This Is Nowhere” -
San Francisco’s Blackbird Blackbird brings his 
dreamy electronic pop to new heights with 
“This Is Nowhere,” off the upcoming fourth 
LP, “Tangerine Sky.” Mikey Maramag, the man 
behind Blackbird Blackbird, is a master of 
smooth, ethereal aesthetics. His crooning falsetto 
is in full effect on the new song. Maramag has 
a soft, tender, angelic voice. The hazy, dreamy 
R&B inspired tune is both elegant and moving. 
“Tangerine Sky” has summer nights written all 
over it, but from what I can already tell, it’ll fit the 
bill for any season of the year. The album will be 
released on June 3rd via OM Records. 

Midnight Faces – “Wake Me” – If any song 
could put you in a hypnotic trance, it would be 
“Wake Me.” The wistful 80s tune takes you on a 
journey traveling to places you could only wish 
to go back to. Midnight Faces is an LA-based 
snyth-pop duo consisting of vocalist Philip 

SEAN’S SHAMELESS 
REVIEWS: 


By Sean Kayden 

SUMMER SONGS WORTH SEEKING OUT 

Stancil and composer Matthew Doty. “The Fire Is 
Gone” is the band’s sophomore release, following 
2013’s “Fornication.” This second go around, the 
textures and layers are much richer and darker. 
The immense emotional landscape of “This Is 
On Fire” is brimming with youthfulness. You 
might forget how old you are listening to “Wake 
Me,” but you will ultimately be rejuvenated. “The 
Fire is Gone” was released on May 13th through 
Broken Factory. 

Broken Records – “Winterless Son” – Scottish 
indie rockers Broken Records latest tune, 
“Winterless Son” off their recently released third 
record “Weights and Pulleys” bursts onto the 
scene with vitality and enthusiasm. It’s a post-
punk sort of tune with such a strong driving 
force of guitars and drums. “Winterless Son” is 
an anthem motivated song sporting lyrics such 
as, “We were going to be anything we wanted; 
We were going to be anywhere but here; And I 
was going to be anything you needed me to be.” 
The hope to keep on keeping on appears a little 
more urgent now. Regardless of how you read this 
tune, this is the kind of song to get you out of the 
passenger seat of life and buckled into the driver’s 
side. 

Wunder Wunder – “Coastline” – The first single, 
“Coastline” off Wunder Wunder’s debut record, 
“Everything Infinite” is a cool little jam that can be 
described as wavy and groovy. Australian music 
producers Aaron Shanahan and Benjamin Plant 
make up Wunder Wunder on their latest creative 
endeavor. Inspired by 60s and 70s psychedelic 
rock with a touch of new school licks, “Coastline” 
is pure summer fun. Wunder Wunder seems 
to specialize in dreamy guitars and distorted 
synths. It’s not breaking any new ground, but 
the blessed-out landscape of Wunder Wunder is 
certainly the place where you’ll want to be this 
summer. “Everything Infinite” is out July 15th via 
Dovecote Records. 

Jeff’s Book Picks By Jeff Brown 

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT: NINE 
AMERICANS AND THEIR EPIC 
QUEST FOR GOLD AT THE 1936 
BERLIN OLYMPICS 

by Daniel James Brown 

Out of the depths of the Depression comes an 
irresistible story about beating the odds and 
finding hope in the most desperate of times.The 
improbable, intimate account of how 9 working 
class boys from the American West showed the 
world at the 1936 Olympics what true grit really 
meant. It was an unlikely quest from the start. 
With a team composed of the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the University of 
Washington’s eight oar crew team was never expected to defeat the elite teams of the East Coast 
and Great Britain, yet they did, going on to shock the world by defeating the German team rowing 
for Adolf Hitler. Drawing on the boys’ own journals and vivid memories of a once in a lifetime 
shared dream, Brown has created an unforgettable portrait of an era, a celebration of a remarkable 
achievement, and a chronicle of one extraordinary personal quest. 


MICHAEL JORDAN: THE LIFE by Roland Lazenby 

The definitive biography of a legendary athlete. Michael Jordan is responsible for sublime moments 
so ingrained in sports history that they have their own names. When most people think of him, they 
think of his beautiful shots with the game on the line, his body totally in sync with the ball hitting 
nothing but net. But for all his greatness, this scion of a complex family from North Carolina's 
Coastal Plain has a darker side: he's a ruthless competitor and a lover of high stakes. There's never 
been a biography that encom-passed the dual nature of his character and looked so deeply at Jordan 
on and off the court .Basketball journalist Roland Lazenby spent almost thirty years covering 
Michael Jordan's career in college and the pros. He witnessed Jordan's growth from a skinny rookie 
to the instantly recognizable global ambassa-dor for basketball whose business savvy and success 
have millions of kids still wanting to be just like Mike. Yet Lazenby also witnessed the Michael 
Jordan whose drive and appetite are more fearsome and more insatiable than any of his fans could 
begin to know. He draws on his personal relationships with Jordan's coaches; countless interviews 
with Jordan's friends, teammates, and family members; and in-terviews with Jordan himself to 
provide the first truly definitive study of Michael Jordan. 

THE CLOSER by Mariano Rivera 

The greatest relief pitcher of all time shares his extraordinary story of survival, love, and baseball. 
Mariano Rivera, the man who intimidated thousands of batters merely by opening a bullpen door, 
began his incredible journey as the son of a poor Panamanian fisherman. When first scouted by the 
Yankees, he didn't even own his own glove. He thought he might make a good mechanic. When 
discovered, he had never flown in an airplane, had never heard of Babe Ruth, and spoke no English. 
What he did know: that he loved his family and then girlfriend, Clara, that he could trust in the 
Lord to guide him, and that he could throw a baseball exactly where he wanted to, every time. Rivera 
tells the story of the champion-ships, the bosses, the rivalries, and the struggles of being a Latino 
baseball player in the United States and of maintaining Christian values in professional athletics. 
The 13 time All-Star discusses his drive to win; the secrets behind his legendary composure. He 
discusses the untold, pitch by pitch account of the ninth inning of Game 7 in the 2001 World Series. 
In The Closer, we come to an even greater appreciation of a legend built from the ground up. 

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CHANDRA CAPTURES GALAXY SPARKLING IN X-RAYS 
THE WORLD AROUND US 
NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way glittering with hundreds of X-ray points of light.

 The galaxy is officially named Messier 51 (M51), but often goes by its nickname of the “Whirlpool Galaxy.” Like the Milky Way, the Whirlpool is a spiral galaxy with spectacular arms of stars and dust. It is 
located 30 million light-years from Earth, and its face-on orientation to Earth gives us a perspective that we can never get of our own spiral galactic home.

 The new dataset, equivalent to about 900,000 seconds of Chandra observing time, reveals nearly 500 X-ray 

sources. In this composite image, the X-ray sources are shown in purple. Optical imagery from the Hubble Space 

Telescope, shown here in red, green, and blue, has been added.

 Most of the X-ray sources are X-ray binaries (XRBs). These systems consist of pairs of objects where a compact 
star, either a neutron star or, more rarely, a black hole, is capturing material from an orbiting companion star. The 
infalling material is accelerated by the intense gravitational field of the compact star and heated to millions of 
degrees, producing a luminous X-ray source.

 A difference between the Milky Way and the Whirlpool Galaxy is that M51 is in the midst of merging with a 
smaller companion galaxy (seen in the upper left of the image). Scientists think this galactic interaction is triggering 
waves of star formation. The most massive of the newly formed stars will race through their evolution in a few 
million years and collapse to form neutron stars or black holes. Most of the XRBs containing black holes in M51 
are located close to regions where stars are forming, showing their connection to the oncoming galactic collision. 

*******

 MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE YEAR 1845, an Irish gentleman and amateur stargazer named Lord Rosse was 

also observing the Whirlpool Galaxy. At his estate, Birr Castle in Parsonstown, County Offaly, he had built what was 

then the world’s largest telescope, with a mirror an amazing six feet (72 inches) in diameter, dubbed “the Leviathan.” 

He had to invent many of the techniques he used for constructing the Leviathan, both because its size was 
without precedent and because earlier telescope builders had guarded their secrets or had simply failed to publish 
their methods. Building of the Leviathan began in 1842 and it was first used in 1845; regular use waited another 
two years, due to the Great Irish Famine. It was the world’s largest telescope, in terms of aperture size, until the early 
20th century. 

 Lord Rosse performed 
astronomical studies and 
catalogued a large number 
of nebulae, discovering the 
spiral nature of some that 
are today known as spiral 
galaxies. In particular, his 
Leviathan was the first to 
reveal the spiral structure 
of M51. As astronomical 
photography was unknown 
in the 1840s, he had to 
record what he saw in 
sketches—and his drawings 
of the Whirlpool Galaxy 
closely resemble modern 
photographs.

 Lord Rosse’s historic 
Leviathan telescope, a 
major monument in the 
history of astronomy, has 
been preserved and is still 
accessible for public tours. 
For information see: 

 http://www.birrcastle.
com/things-to-do-inoffaly/
the-great-telescope/
info_12.html.

 Left, 2014 image of Whirlpool Galaxy by Chandra Observatory; Above, 1845 drawing by Lord Rosse: 
You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@MtnViewsNews.com.