cutie-pies plucked from the food court

man, the burn is comin down on kelefa now in the city pages, which is only certain to make his prose more important and accentuate how reactionary and sad the very fogies defending themselves really are. it's hard for me to believe that an argument that's been bubbling around both in universities and magazine editorial departments, in freelance circles and record shops, on ilx ferchristsakes, can manage to surprise or offend anyone. it's like WAKE UP DUDES, IT'S NOT THE 70s ANYMORE.

from the same pages is something i feared in my own writing on sufjan stevens - the binary opposition of god/spiritual v. secular world resulting in some facile sociological observations about americanness, and in this case, a sort of whiny we-lost post-election reflection.

IN OTHER NEWS - saw Ellen Allien at APT last night - not consistent, but terribly amazing in parts. Had never been there, so when everyone i mentioned it to said "oh that place is small" I thought, ya whatever...When we got in it was crowded (10pm), when we left (1:30pm) it was positively insane - plus with so many boys throwing their arms in the air like it was a rave circa 1995, it feel both enormous and very tight. Actually, it was lovely - sometimes it's nice to get bumped around by the energy of those around you.

how to destroy angels

john balance, founding member of coil, is dead at 44.



i was fortunate enough to have talked my way into their show at sonar in 2000, in a small church where the band played a gorgeous set while naked dancers threw huge silver sequins all over the stage and audience - the sound was rapturous, the experience is singular in my mind. i remember thinking that it seemed impossible for a band to conjure up so much in me until then - there was something in the spectacle, the sound that made me feel not scared but unstable, not cold but open; exposed. it was like someone took my thoughts and made them public.

if i can't dance...

I don't want to be part of your revolution. (emma goldman)

i'm only going to ask this once - sponsor me to dance the night away at Move Against AIDS and win both peace of mind and funny photos of the drama no doubt unfolding over the evening. They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

and you thought godard killed the stones

it's bad luck when your moniker rhymes with RIP, but give a second forODB. Just a few from 36. Can't win with letters or numbers. i guess my first album is going to be titled 'i'm livin' to 100 and will die in my sleep.'

went to the most upscale loft space i've ever seen, office ops last night. they have good heat AND multiple vintage pin ball machines in working order. Utopia? Went to see Tunnel of Love, a grimy three piece from Boston who, for lack of originals, trash the shit out of near-dead freedom rock. Darkest ever cover of Paint It Black for finale, sung by mostly guitarist stoner haired young buck who radiated, sweated-even desperate adolescent lust. mostly lead singer in elvis-glasses, cheap vamp cape and manson tights - a waif boy prancing like iggy to a crowd of 20, working it, picking the least likely gal in the audience (namely, me) to sing Wild Thing to...mind you, caressing my face and all. I wasn't even offended as the two took turns beating the crap out of a blow up doll, cause the two tiers of mid-20s boys standing front were positively salivating - pure triangulation, projection. is this what early jon spencer looked like? will it disappear overnight? can't tell. good stuff.

also - the readymades, yep, you guessed it. the audience in line, rotating into instruments then playing to a video prompt. best songs "waffle: unlawful" and maybe "landlords of chaos" because even when balls to the wall, freaked out dumb art school prankin, people wanted order - they stuck to the text prompt and noodle/thrashed. only the sound guy, singer on the Waffle song, really broke out and told a narrative. A genius born. you can't lie with an instrument.

Also, i have a feeling that beach boys the musical isn't going to fork over the money to buy tons of sand, recreating the lifelike effect of B.Wilson's madness. Still, I mean, this fall/winter is really a bumper crop of Beach Boys bullshit. Who wants to go with me?

your voiceover is no whisper in my ear

saw Fade To Black last night at the 42nd street theater - crazy rain, cold so that a woman in the bathroom said "I'm from Florida - I can't STTTTANNDDD this" which prompts question, did Jeb take away at the cinemas in the sunshine state? If no, then why trample OUR city just to spend extra to see a movie on a small screen? Oh, so you can go to the TGI Friday's afterwards and drunkenly dance with an 'urban looking gentleman who rapped into my camcorder,' as per my night. Yes, TGI Friday's. As movie going companion Tyler said, "coming to times square is like touring through the midwest's idea of new york'

the movie. MOVIE! Jay-Z as benign egomaniac slouched in chairs, bobbled headed drop jawwed to kayne's beats, arguing with pharell who tries hard to please, (everybody's trying to get their "the world is yours" in before it's too late - biggie, tupac...nas, no?) backstage foxy brown's bustier is coming loose, ?uestlove is patently nonchalant, Ghostface, crazy...then taking the stage for what had to be one of the most adoring audiences ever - sing a long breaking out in almost ever song can go for whole verses, in rythmn, ladies and gents dancing in their seats, with each other, looking madly or happily to the stage, or (significantly) at each other...R. Kelly looks tired, all dressed in white, Jay-Z's pinstripes and polka dots almost as ackward as his dancing. "How many studios you know have a wild buffalo in 'em?' while recording "99 Problems" at Rubin's pad, with Perry Farrell looking on, blankly, scared rabbit that he is. And, of course, Beyonce, who I won't bother to compare to Tina since everyone does but man, she doesn't really seem human. Jay-Z with her, Missy, Foxy, and less so with Mary J. seems distant - his telescope of face shocked, amused, scared even - to his business/in the zone face when rolly polly Freeway et all get up for the boy trax. And yes, the self-help brainwash of Jay-Z's voiceover, broken voiced perhaps to seem sincere - another gesture, another layer revealed to an intimacy hungry audience - rehashing his rags to...story, so familiar, its more about the form than the content..Yes, Jay-Z has done it again - gotten my money to entertain me with another well told version of the same story.

IN OTHER NEWS...i got a haircut, almost certainly related to my quotation of the Pavement lyric from several blogs ago. Dammit! I wouldn't date someone, or go to therapy with someone who doesn't get my cultural references, so why should have my hair cut by someone who doesn't...especially...A ROCKABILLY CHICK! I mean, anyone who's primary visual cues are taken from post-war gas station pin-ups should have been a little suspect to me, and when i said 'the perfect blend of shagged out gallagher headed towards Cat Power doe-eyed 70s folk singer" she had no clue. and you, dear reader, know just what I'm talking about. Why don't YOU have some scissors and a mission? Now I look like Gidget the midwestern mall vamp, all ratty 'motion' looking like the hair equivalent to office space's 'flare.' help!

music makes memories you've never had

so, i've been travellling for the last three weeks. my grandpa died. i didn't want to write about it on my blog, cause it's so dramatic/emo/smacks of desperation for attention, but you know what? it's what's on my mind right now and to second guess that cause it's public record is the antithesis of what i started blogging for, and blah blah even tho Chuck told me that some of his writers consistently get more hits on their pieces bc they're avid bloggers, i don't want to think of this thing as a lame promo tool for my fabulous writing/academic/public intellectual career (career, career). i had to pick the music at his funeral, and i failed miserably - shaker hymns, bach fugues, and "amazing grace" because he used to listen to the bagpipe version at unholy dB levels while painting when i was a kid.

so i've been flying and driving a lot, aka, listening to a lot of music. i'm happy to report that even though i hate the premise, the bulky phrasing and VH1-ification of the 80s, I still sort of like bowling for soup's 1985, and like them even more for this, from their site:

"The Eighties were really influential to me," says Reddick. "And a lot of people coming to our shows are fourteen or fifteen, but their parents are barely in their thirties. And everyone thinks they're outdated, but you know what?" He laughs. "We're outdated too. We just disguise it well in Dickies." As usual, there are some odd twists to the song, including the fact that it was really supposed to be about 1984. "That's true," admits Reddick. "But 1985 rhymes better with 'preoccupied,’ so there's the song."

I mean, if you're going to take song-writing lessons from Sugar Ray, you can at least use what you've learned.

this piece makes me want to hear the futureheads, though i have to say that dogs die in hot cars is my favorite second line brit invasion band of the moment - so beautifully madness, so patently uncool.

Umm, that ciana track has this curious mantra feeling, sparse and minimal - my head wants to fill out the verses with yelps, strings, squishy electro sounds - with her falling, breathing "sexy, independent, down-to-spend-it type that's gettin' his dough," which would sound fierce if it weren't for the fact that her voice is more texture than substance. still, photos on her website try to make her beyonce-diva where she seems like a very nice girl next door - an even more sexy fantasy, if you ask me, and why not?

And finally, "What Are You Waiting For," starting off torch burner/high school musical lead actress - hello? why does everyone always eat it up when someone puts out a self-hating/industry concious pop track (like n'sync's fabu 'pop')? this sound sounds like it fell out of the Larry T. electro stationwagon, got ran over by radio compression and flopped back into the present. You're still a Super Hot Female! Ohh pleeeassse. I'm not waiting for your hott track, Gwen, because you've made then for ten years. I'm waiting to see if you're going to make more of this fawning garbage trying to chase pink just cause moby liberated you from your ska-destiny.

join us.

join us., originally uploaded by pinkgerl.

in the eternal question of man v. mouse, i have chosen.

the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan

kudos of course to k.'s anti-rockist manifesto, which is even more amusing than usual bc it anticipates its own backlash- that k! - which i suppose means that in some ways, k is still playing the rockist's games, even as he urges readers and indeed, his fellow writers, to examine how they use music writing and think about what 'pop music' is.

my one defense of rockism is that it correctly presumes that the music industry is evil, exploits artists and rips off fans, and that for 'good music' to exist, it somehow must either ignore these things en masse or critique them in some clever way (as opposed to whiny michael jackson style flip flopping). the negative side of this is the privledging of artists who make explicit their anti-industry status (aka punk, underground hip hop) or whose work is 'art' in spite of its mega-monolith distribution/marketing (aka bruce and the bunch). the positive side of this is that even asskissing rolling stone still writes articles looking to the consumer/listener's side of the debate on downloading, and that generations of music fans can learn early on (via no doubt both punk and hip hop, among others) to examine the music that they listen to not just for its artistry (as k suggests we should) but also for its history, its place in the economy (politically, socially, aesthetically), and its use in (har har) everyday life as a form of communication, art, and/or pleasure.

ON ANOTHER NOTE: am out in San Diego. Lovely here. Went to Disneyland bc even though I hate the monoculture, I love private public space built as urban/suburban utopias, and you know what, I wouldn't mind having been Walt Disney. The place was so exhaustingly detailed that after a while i surrendered entirely, almost looking for beignets in the fake new orleans, i was that distracted. the music there was positively horrific, however; even on the Mark Twain riverboat ride ("I never read him, we only read European literature in high school" said the girl in front of me. I mean, the dude has his own ride in Disneyland ferchristsakes, like how is it possible that he's not part of the canon?) the lazy banjo pickin' (hey hey authenticity) sounded supercanned, tinny and not even in that winsome oldtyme way. It occurred to me that Disney's imagineering has rendered itself obsolete - everything looks like Disneyland now, so what's the next step?

And no, I didn't forget the election, I'm merely mortified and already near saturation point with the giddy rhetoric of 'the dead heat' and the pundit fever pitch. My good thoughts go out to folks like Caryn Brooks who are tramping down doors in my homestate. Fight to the end, my friends. Tonight I think I convinced my mom to vote Kerry. That's one for me.