oh my soggy brain! today was the first day of classes and i now have 3.5 hours of 'intro to western music' under my very snazzy belt.

of things i had and hadn't heard:

Webern's Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op.10 (1913), which condenses all the quasi-orientalism, taut anxiety, and offchance sublime of 12 tone as bite-sized confections

smoke gets in yr eyes: something about internal rhyme just sets me to thinking about stephen merritt. i know i am reversing cause and effect.

the sound of goats fucking: played in opposition to Verese's monumental Poem electronique...when asked how the two sounds compared, they said things like "I didn't know two totally different sounds could both be terrible" which proves that intellectualism and free thinking is alive and well at Brown.

Hey, here's the call for the new issue of front row center + the last issue...Man, you should write for it...:

It's called Front Row Center. It's a hot new zine that's half as wide as a maga-, three times more matte than Sassy and infinitely cheaper. Get on the rickety ship and write for it!

The concept is this: write about music from the first person, experientially, as a fan, as a hater, as someone listening not just at a desk, in front of a computer and because you have to, but because it's actually part of your world.

The form: a small, easy to publish zine made and distributed by me for free - all contributors get copies for themselves and others, and I leave them wherever I may roam. Email me for copies to take to your local friendly record store/bookstore/coffee shop/vegan co-op/pirate cove.

The writing: I'd like to make each issue of FRC an ongoing project, meaning that you can contribute to any and every issue whenever you'd like. If everyone keeps their word counts to around 300, I can just lay out another set of pages. Voila! The zine continues to grow and stay in print. With this neophyte world, however, I hope that you will consider writing for the upcoming issue first.

So: 300 words (plus nom de plume and mailing addy) emailed to pinkgerl@yahoo.com on these topics:

2) Due date 2/14/04 ish…Songs so good/wonderful/inspiring/miserable/etc that you can't listen to them anymore. A song, an artist, a recording, anything musical that has moved you in such a way that it's hard to drop the needle down.

1) already in print/additions…Sympathy for the Devil: the song, the film, the era.

That's the deal. I'm hoping that FRC makes a little community for itself by being somewhere that everyone can just write without thinking about the commercial audience…that all of the formal post-college work world drama can dissolve on backwater pages and just have a friendly chat.

re: lifestyle politics... i forgot abt the system of a down non-prof until i read this interview with Tom Morello where he challenges Fugazi to a punk foot race.

i am fully in the bing crosby wasteland, from 'swing low sweet chariot' to duets with louis a. (gone fishin') to animatronic xmas tunes, it's like i'm waiting for my gi to walk through the frong door every moment. i can't get enough of these weird songs where he and his duet partner just talk shit to each other over trodding orchestra. fully pre-war pc white man skit, mixed with odes to the shoe shine boy who will 'make your shoes walk in rythmn.'

anyway, i'm convinced that bing crosby is the justin timberlake of the depression. i have to figure this all out for sound collector, which i've decided is the best self-indulgent wonderfully useless printer of music criticism i've read in a while. just cause, just cause i always want to BUY everything they talk about, just to argue with them sometimes. this fully acknowledges my white, bs east coast college elitist rockist fetish, but when i want to give in to that part of me, sound collector is my porn of choice.

in other news: tomorrow i'm headed to nyc to work on a web piece on the wildwood harley show and tonight i spent an hour listen to my location recordings from the show. nothing like having 100 roaring motorcycles pour from your computer speakers in the -2 nuclear winter. in another life, i'd be a low-brow sun city girl. oh wait, i'm a post-modern ethnomusicology student, duh. i guess i just need to make more recordings!

hey, the new tortoise is really good, if you still care. it's got this weird spinning plate thing going on, melodies just hover and the drums are much less chicago/cliche than one might expect from mcentire. the whole thing seems tastefully epic, a bit new agey but also there's this killer guitar solo somewhere in the middle of the CD that sat me up in my bed last night. nice.

also nice - my paper got accepted at EMP. back to seattle! did i mention that i had a nightmare that i went to the opening cocktail party and it was full of pitchfork writers? imagine a worse fate than three days of papers on mr. lif and death cab? eeiiiwww.

IN OTHER NEWS - how bout that speech last night, huh? i was thrilled when some brave souls (evacuated via the dropping chair like in MTV's long lost remote control) clapped when bush mentions 'this year, parts of the homeland security act will expire,' tee hee, clapping as protest.

meanwhile, my roommate bought up www.ashleypearson.com for our general pleasure and Ohio (hi in the middle) has decided that bush's QUEERBASHING comments would be an excellent entrance for their anti-gay marriage proposition. on the intro to media studies tip - it's so frustrating that the whole thing is framed around 'sanctity of male and female' marriage as if the two were mutually exclusive. it's almost as annoying as saying 'pro life' instead of 'anti-choice.' language is power.

on the "ya, so what" front is a good idea, lackluster conclusion by the ever-fab Kelefa. he writes about bad singing in hip hop as if amatuer vocals were something new to pop music. the observation is apt - a lot of hip hop is being made with totally offkey choruses, but i'm of the opinion that this might be bc hip hop has radically shifted gears to cross over to more r n' b texture/beats and radioslick choruses, thus rappers have to sing more than they did in the past. example: nelly would be nothing if not for his weird little melodic transitions over crunky keys. i blame it all on pharell and yes, as k points out, kayne west.

i remember reading an article about "real" bands that play corporate functions (meetings, conventions, parties) for big bucks, but for the past few years, corporations have been going in-house for their entertainment.

...and my dad's company was the first winner of the BATTLE OF THE CORPORATE ROCK BANDS, which is the world of reverse logic makes his company maybe one of the coolest in the world. i mean, the band gets all its gear FOR FREE! and by covering the Eagles and being called "The Difference," it's a wonder that they were never NME's next big thing...

The Difference Wins First Place at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Battle of the Corporate Bands (CorpNews 10/9/01)

On 6 October 2001, nearly 100 Cleveland-area AP employees and customers listened with fingers crossed as The Difference began their one-song playoff before a panel of celebrity judges at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Ohio.
Soon those fingers were snapping and toes were tapping as The Difference played "Hotel California" (originally by The Eagles). The competition, the first annual Battle of the Corporate Bands, was sponsored by the Hall of Fame and Fortune magazine, and included nine other corporate bands from around the country.

Following the play-off two finalists were selected, The Difference and The Briggs Bluesbusters (from Briggs & Stratton). Playing with AP-brand passion, The Difference won. According to Sal Nicrone, singer/drummer for The Difference, "The competition was close since six of the other bands were very talented. Everyone had a great time, and we got to network with employees from other corporations, meet representatives from Fortune, and show people the kind of spirit that Air Products is about."
The eight Trexlertown employees who perform as The Difference have shared their music with our employees, our customers, and the community, during 25 shows (primarily for charitable organizations) since the band's formation last year.
"The Battle of the Corporate Bands was not only a great way for us to
please employees and customers in the area by inviting them as guests, but it's also a global publicity opportunity," said Beth Mentesana, manager, AP Public Relations. "Fortune is a reputable and influential business magazine with a worldwide circulation of one million, and they'll be publishing an article about the competition in November."
The Difference rocks for Air Products

In the clear bfr school starts again, listening to that which I hadn't in '03. That is:

+/- the acoustic/blip trip that has been serving me well as of late, a little too straightforward, corny moby drops for me but lovely

my favorite: slim moon just posted something on Girl Group abt how indie music is so much better now than it was when he got started in the scene (snicker), and this is just the type of thing - super overproduced girl/guy smiths meets slowdive overdrive that makes me jaded like, 'ya, everyone is doing this.' i bet they'd be good live. blisscent is really into them.

sufjan stevens: holy shit - my biggest mistake was to ignore this for the not very sensible reason that sufjan sounded like a dumb sort of first name. HOLY CLASSIC ALBUM, batman. If you like...songs...and you don't have this, you should. "detroit, lift up yr weary head" is my current favorite track - one of the few artists who can do a stereolab type thing w/o trying to BE stereolab.

and i just spun the mixel pixel, which will be on heavy rotation at 183 this week.

IN OTHER NEWS: the lofts in Olneyville, of which I've written some, have been raided by zoning folks. I believe that everyone was forced out and lotsofnoise.com hasn't posted any new info. typical of providence to do something like that after all the people living in those lofts are so community oriented and very much in to making their living legal. I can see the fire argument 100% but the kids who lived there and built out the spaces should have been allowed to bring the space up to code. I smell a rat.

i now have three friends on the Dean campaign, and one lowly and beloved (misguided) friend on the Kucinich campaign. It seems everyone around is gettting fired up to over take W, including
Mike from Fat Wreck Chords. The article gives me grand visions of mid-90s punks and Simmons' hip hop summit meeting the NRA and Xtian Coalition head on in the back lot. Ahh, the end of multiplicity and the new age of identity politics as the only politics.

this has been sitting on my harddrive for a few days...sorry if the nytimes link doesn't work, they've been cracking down on archived articles these days:

Just when I thought it was safe to read the Times...Michael Azerrad's
terribly two-dimensional sob story on how nu-metal, what he calls
'therapy rock' and i call 'camp counselor punk,' is giving depression
drug-addeled, suburban wastoids 'earnest' advice about suicide (a la
good charlotte's 'hold on' video, which is in and of itself a rip off
of soul asylum's 'runaway train'). How could a guy who spent so much of
his life writing 'our band could be your life call punk "a movement
founded by a tiny coterie of troubled misfits and outcasts. The
pioneering Southern California punk band Black Flag's landmark 1978
debut EP was called "Nervous Breakdown" and themes of insanity,
alienation and depression have been a hallmark of punk lyrics ever
since."

Funny, I thought both hardcore and other punk, including the "the
up-and-coming "emo" genre," which Mr. Azerrad describes to
purse-clutching grannies who of course have never heard of punk even in
the Times even with Powers, Reynolds, etc writing about it FOREVER,
well, I thought we had all moved a little past that to maybe...social
change? community? organization? sexual, identity, gender, racial
politics? grassroots organizing, distribution and alternative networks
of communication, economy and lifestyle? And...not sounding like 1980?
Hello Minor Threat, Fugazi, Nation of Ulysses, Rage Against the
Machine, Calvin Johnson, Op Ivy, Kathleen Hanna, all of riot grrrl,
most ska...Touch & Go, Mr. Lady, Dischord, Kill Rock Stars, 31G,
Troubleman Unlimited, Gravity, Victory, Lookout! Fat Wreck Chords,
MoonSka...

"As a result therapy rockers fetishize depression like gangsta rappers
fetishize the thug life, publicizing their plight while asserting their
credibility. Just as the group Public Enemy once called rap the "CNN of
the streets," therapy rock claims to report from the front lines of
suburbia. In other words, it's cool to be bummed out. And it sure sells
records."

How about getting over thy self, as Mr. Manson suggested in "Bowling
for Columbine," and taking a look at the cause of teen suicide, not the
prevention networks, the huggy public service announcements, and bowing
down to big pharma to solve basic problems in the American school
system, pressures to succeed academically, repressive conformist,
materialist teens and (hello, all the bands Azerrad talk about are VERY
aggro, very male in spite of their mall punk chic and painted on tears)
pressures of nascent sexuality unaddressed by the screwed up Christian
right that preaches abstinence as the only form of birth control. At
least bands like Manson's critique the culture instead of continuing
the victim culture without any solution but 'wait til college, bro.'

Psychologists, said that although he devoutly wished parents and
schools were more involved, he approved of rock bands counseling young
people about depression and related issues.

"Bless their hearts," he said. "It certainly goes a long from talking
about killing bitches and whores and cops and everything else doesn't
it? If kids listen to rock music more than they listen to a teacher in
a classroom, God bless us that they're getting the message." >

And of course Azerrad ends the piece with a mildly racist pro-rock
statement from some talking head who thinks that 20 year old dudes who
urge girls to take of their shirts at the Warped Tour (blink 182)
should be 'role models' and 'spokespersons' for the dangerous, very
real problem of teen suicide. Way to pass the buck while simultaniously
giving voice to the redneck anxieties of the culturally repressed
'adult world' which you are so desperate to explain all this 'angry
music' to, Mr. Azerrad. I'm glad I bought your book on half.com so you
didn't get any of my money.

listening to the newish yo la tengo - so jazzy jazz - having those winsome high school thoughts. whenever i listen to them i get dangerously close to setting up those dreaded reception scenarios that bad writers always use in reviews...music for pre-twilight winter drives while chewing mint gum with the heater on 65% warm.

i have an article on 'the state of new music in rhode island,' pun intended, up at New Music Box, a fine website on all things avant classical. the photo was required, prompting me to wish i sort of had a real author photo (see the most recent issue of Stop Smiling for my interview with Marion Ettlinger, photographer of many of the 20th century's most iconic author photos). providence overload includes a girlie travel article for the upcoming Venus and my recent (oops, late) pitch to EMP about the localized definition of 'noise' in context of the noise rock scene there. i have a sick reading list to go through - noise: the political economy of sound, which my friend mark made crazy faces while reading a few years ago, and noise water meat, which i saw at the pretentious kid in my department's book shelf at his holiday party, at which i drunkenly danced on his bed with a keyboard to 'i ran,' which may have been one of the top 10 moments of my 2003. oh the golden memories of last month.

am thinking about that HUGE throbbing gristle book, is it worth the read? email pinkgerl@yahoo.com for suggestions. i also just read simon reynolds essay in 'blissed out' on noise, very negative in his situating noise as anti-body, anti-life.

oh, after a day of lounging around and reading 'the best unrequired reading of 2003,' which had a great story about a the first ten years of the life of child born during the LA riots by Daniel Voll, i sauntered through some unrequired listening of '03 while figuring my pazz & jop best ofs, listened to the rosebuds who have the twee jangle pop thing going on but the worse iron-on'ed smiths quotes and hey baby vagueness that just spins them out of being really, really decent.

and was reading sf jones blog, a post about how lovely cat power is + the link to her video. thinking about how chris newmyer (self starter foundation mailing list) wrote something similar abt karen o, how the indie-ified video sequencing catches the mystique, etc etc. adding that 'the music keeps getting better and better' as, apparently, they keep getting better looking. this comes just at a time when girl group is talking about how only 'attractive' female artists or girls in bands get into mainstream mags, and 'the ugly girls' are pushed to the ghetto of minor mags. it's frustrating to think that this could be true, and that artists like edith frost, who made sensitive, intelligent and welcoming alt.country/indie crossover a few years ago really didn't get the due she would have if she were of the chantuese complexion. is it exclusively males who get sucked into this? did i get sucked into the joan jett/pj worship like everyone else? if we've constructed beauty differently, is it okay to look at hanna with lusty thoughts? more than sure, as public figures, but what of the critical when it has a face you want to please?

i'm trying to figure out if blink 182's 'feelin this' or 'figured you out' by nickelback is the most sinisterly anti-woman clap coming out of the nu-metal basement at the moment. that nickelback song makes my skin crawl when i hear it, i mean, at least puddle of mudd is self hating (when not blatently kurt ash-kissing) and linkin park writes one banal but decent song (over and over, love that smashed turntable in the numb video), but nickelback does like dean and just drops mention of that confed flag wit their trailertrash, inarticulate violence ridden angry boyfriend bullshit. all the christina a + lil' kim synergy in the world doesn't seem to be stopping it.

all this i learned while lying on the couch watchingall corporate things that pretend to rock, where i was surprised to learn that the guys from jet actually take themselves seriously enough to put their own likenesses in a video. shocking! and it looks like an '80s gap ad, with ya-baby go go dancers and a plexi floor drop so you can know, 'it's all about the shoes.'