RIP Billy GuitarWolf
We regret to inform you that Hideaki Sekiguchi, a.k.a. Billy has passed away by heart attack in the morning of March 31st., at the age of 38. (from the band's site)
Summer, New Orleans, the kind where I am driving without a seatbeat cause the metal's too hot to touch. Dive Bar, plywood floor, decent jukebox and better pin ball, makings of an evening. Southern sodas come one size - enormous - before the beers, many beers. I'm with friends, a guy I crush on because he really does build robots in his bedroom, a rock guy whose mojo spirit had badly tattooed flames down its sides. Guitar Wolf, cool, effortless insanity, onstage - an event in the stifle and boredom of a rarely toured town. People are crazy running around, dancing, and robot boy stage dives to the false floor, twists his foot on a board, breaks his leg, keeps dancing. To the hospital, no seatbelts again, too much adeneline, thrashing drunk crush howling pain and swathing riffs, riffs, yay, doctor give me some Paaaaain Killlllers, ya! Cast should have read 'I went to a Guitar Wolf show and all I got was this broken leg.'
---
Dear readers, I'm in a bad mood tonight. I shouldn't be, things are going swell, but I am. I put on the Kaiser Chiefs, which I had been avoiding cause how silly is their "I predict a riot" video, it's like the worst metaphor for premature ejaculation since, well, since that commercial about throwing the pigskin through the tire. Yikes! I predict a riot! Anyway, one of the few wonderfully silly post-Franz new wave whose ballads are better than the pop hits. "Team Mate" - an adorable Zombies-lite shred of psych that mentions "a bicycle built for two," it just warms the heart like some gem found on a recently unearthed mid-90s mix made by someone you've long since forgot.*
*There is something very dumbly apt about making such a bad writer scenario as that, considering the song, the place, the mild miserablism in which I am currently miring. Ha!
3.23.2005
sounds like mellon collie
oh, i forgot to brag that last night i heard a track from the upcoming sufjan album 'illinois' a grand, epic track full of big whispered multi-tracked vocals, many strings and i think i remember piano - very little or no guitar. angelic harmonies closed the thing out - no danielson. ultra hush hush - i was duly impressed and impressions of it sounding 'a lot like mellon collie and the infinite sadness' were made. yaaaay! still no song titles. i am relieved, being only a mild fan of seven swans.
p2p and long live the free
Wired reports about Slim Moon and the Decemberists' decision to legally release their "Sixteen Military Housewives"video on BitTorrent in efforts to gain a larger audience. While I haven't been madly following the paid-content/p2p debate as closely as I had in the past, SXSW snapped me out of the mid-revolution complacency. In 2002, when Napster got shut down, I would have laughed my head off if you told me the iTunes/Rhapsody/Emusic models would gain a healthy buzz and business. Now it's happening, slowly, and the desire for more passive-listener based streaming/download audio demands a continuing of this. But how do emerging bands get heard in all this, how do smaller bands get bigger, what about that mp3 file no one is downloading? I fully support the free online trade of artist-donated music and video content (who wouldn't) and really wish this aspect of the debate held more currency when thinking about p2p. Just because you can make profit from online sales doesn't me you HAVE to or even, have to want to. Sometimes, information just wants to be free.
3.22.2005
wilson: "oh, smiley smile? it's a very pleasant hashish album"
SXSW Friday:
First order of the day - Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks in a round table discussion headed by Alan Light. If anyone knows VD Parks - I am one grandfather short, and could use the verbal inspiration, please send him my way. Seriously, I have not witnessed in person such an eloquent storyteller. Question: Why did you have Brian sing on Orange Crate Art? horribly retold Answer: Well, we were in the studio recording the album. I remember it well, Brian ordered a Chinese chicken salad and an orange juice. He laid down two backing vocals, two melodies and two harmonies – six vocal tracks that day – and just as we were about to get rolling, the tape started and, Brian took off his headphones. 'Parks, why...why are you having me sing these songs' 'Well, Brian, I can't stand the sound of my own voice.' 'Ya, I don't blame you.' News alert: Brian Wilson's next project is going to be a Christmas album and some band-o in the audience wanted to arrange Smile for high school choral ensembles. Check your local listings.
Also, Light handled the situational absurdity like a cool parent at a coffee shop, mildly apologetic for his kids' wacky behavior but dignified enough to let you know that he had some pretty cool kids.
Got in to the Spin party just to miss Louis XIV and in time for...Bloc Party. I think that the Bloc Party factory might be working overtime these days, since they're curiously boring mugs have been all around tourland, magland, hypeland even though their live show continues to mire. I should like their album, but live they seem like their wearing songs several sizes too big and it urks me that they produced a spunky, crazed pop-post-punk album they can't pull off.
Saw the ever wonderful American Analog Set, who ushered in the evening before I went off to see BARR, aka B. Fowler, former drummer for Dopo Yume-daphne era, Dogg & Pony mastermind (argh) Sex Sells Magazines impresario, all around fun, funny smart baltimore dude. He does this lo-fi performance art dare I say spoken word kinda post-techno politico beats thing, which I really like and is totally unsurprisingly 5RC.
Yikes, Go! Team next, one of those crazy line bands who people were buzzing all about. Don't believe the hype, my friends. I have yet to listen to the album, but the live thing is like Jane Fonda fronting the Beta Band covering Avalances song, in all the worst ways. Like hip hop shows, it asked too much of my hands, and the tempo wasn't for waving. Yikes! They deserve, at least, that punctuation. Dogs Die In Hot Cars, the post-hype clear out band, did their Please Describe Yourself hits with modest glee, Craig Macintoch not channeling the same vocal bravado of the album but still being even more winsome than his "I Love You Cause I Have To" video, which I saw on Fuse, which seems to rule.
OXES, my other Baltimore bros, totally made my SXSW. Outdoors, one a.m., weird dude crowd amped up for the show. Drummer/ultra-friend Chris gets the whole posse to sing the animal-noise opening to Disturbed song about the sickness. Tight, hilarious, wireless show with excellent heckling "I'm sorry, but you're just not as good as Lightning Bolt," shouted a man who then threw his clothes onto stage. "Oh, he's our friend" Chris said later. Then, then, then, Chris announces "we will not be doing an encore, but a one act play about the existential drama of life, called "oxes do oxes" and, as an audience member had helped move Oxes' famed boxes (they stand on them for more rock visibility) onto the terraced side of this weird hill, and they began 'Also sprach Zarathustra,' which prompted one of the guitarists' to start lumbering around the hill, naked. He had a very convincing neanderthal gait, low-hanging testes and a stick in his hand. Madly accurate? At the pinnacle of the sound, he struck the boxes and they tumbled down onto the patio while everyone cheered. Later, Chris was very concerned to know if the boxes hit anyone. Nice guys, weird concept, fantastic execution.
Saturday started with Matos' ill-advisement to see Savvy, the logical end to one's appreciation for wholesome dance pop. Mickey Mouse Club farm team. It was outside, I had a snow-cone, they all wore headsets and were mostly lip-synching. We made cruel jokes about Berto, who is much more cut in real life and seems to be about ready to be kicked out of neverland.
Checked out the Gigantic showcase...Shelby, I never heard of but were totally awesome three-piece dream pop who seem to have hit their stride on The Luxury of Time, a little Walkmen-y, but who isn't in NYC these days? Speaking of which, I was there to see some old pals in The Cloud Room who are just as serious as their band photos suggest, but sound like a more whimsical early U2, in the best way, with little tinges of one-note Echo and the Bunnymen synths that I just loved.
Off to Making Time (Philllieeee!) to see Pony Up! (snooze) and the Unicorns/Th' Corn Gangg hip hop explosion, which threatened to be pretty rad just as the austin sky opened up. We had to get the hell out, into a cab and over to USE, lest it all come crashing down. Amy P. reported that the show got flooded out and a rock (maybe one loosened from the Oxes show, which was next door) crashed down on the PA. Sorry Dave!
USE. Best. Band. Ever. Sonic Boom put out their older LP last week. Buy it! Love it! Be nice to them, cause they're good people! Packed house, fists waving, rain making wet dog midday drench fest slightly funkadelic, just color-lights-textures-shouts all around good time YA! Matos, Lindsay Thomas, Caleb and I ended up dining with the band, having a lovely chat and then riding off to the 6th street strip with them. And I got to see Motley Crue two weeks ago, how could life get better?
Oh ya, by seeing Buck 65. I loved the Centaur track before, but after seeing him live, I want to just listen to the whole catalog - harsh, strong, absurd poetry packed back, up around beats, metal tracks, dangerous silences, scratching - all the while Richard Tefry, mildly mostly theatrical, in charge of his body, contouring all with one gesture of one muscle, a certain smile punctuating, posture filling out the stanza. genius showman, snakeoil shamen, confessor. Consider me converted.
Already converted to Saul Williams, whose "Black Stacey" has been in my head ever since his following Tefry. Williams' viola player is crazy fierce noise girl, my god. Should have stayed but split for Skeletons, then I Love U But I've Chosen Darkness, and the Waco Brothers. Then, done. Sunday was lovely brunch and sunshine at the statehouse, an airplane full of gig bags and pr girls with all electronics plugged into every available socket in the waiting area. Hilarious!
---
And if that isn't rock critic nerdy enough for you, I came home at 2am, wrote a grant proposal, went to school for eight hours and then went to see Greil Marcus read a paper on Bob Dylan at Columbia, on "Masters of War" and the recent stink about a Boulder, CO high school talent show at which some kids calling themselves 'the coalition of the willing' after scrapping the name 'the tali-band,' pissed off a Clear Channel mom whose kid thought the Dylan lyrics had been changed to advocate the death of the commander in chief. As I type this, I realize that my blog could end up watched by the Secret Service. Bring up my count, fellas! Just kidding, I would prefer the boring anonymity of not being made a criminal for thinking. Anyway, the Dylan-bots had a go about 'is he political' and co-panelist Christopher Ricks tore it up with his uncanny descriptions of Blonde On Blonde album titles and nuanced read of "Masters of War" as part of a self-congratulatory and misguided American mentality in which one side will not grant the other the agency of thought. Marcus was like, 'yes, that's true - but 16 year olds still use it to protest,' and it ground dead. Ricks is a sassy character, a little Parks-like, but lost his temper in the end.
First order of the day - Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks in a round table discussion headed by Alan Light. If anyone knows VD Parks - I am one grandfather short, and could use the verbal inspiration, please send him my way. Seriously, I have not witnessed in person such an eloquent storyteller. Question: Why did you have Brian sing on Orange Crate Art? horribly retold Answer: Well, we were in the studio recording the album. I remember it well, Brian ordered a Chinese chicken salad and an orange juice. He laid down two backing vocals, two melodies and two harmonies – six vocal tracks that day – and just as we were about to get rolling, the tape started and, Brian took off his headphones. 'Parks, why...why are you having me sing these songs' 'Well, Brian, I can't stand the sound of my own voice.' 'Ya, I don't blame you.' News alert: Brian Wilson's next project is going to be a Christmas album and some band-o in the audience wanted to arrange Smile for high school choral ensembles. Check your local listings.
Also, Light handled the situational absurdity like a cool parent at a coffee shop, mildly apologetic for his kids' wacky behavior but dignified enough to let you know that he had some pretty cool kids.
Got in to the Spin party just to miss Louis XIV and in time for...Bloc Party. I think that the Bloc Party factory might be working overtime these days, since they're curiously boring mugs have been all around tourland, magland, hypeland even though their live show continues to mire. I should like their album, but live they seem like their wearing songs several sizes too big and it urks me that they produced a spunky, crazed pop-post-punk album they can't pull off.
Saw the ever wonderful American Analog Set, who ushered in the evening before I went off to see BARR, aka B. Fowler, former drummer for Dopo Yume-daphne era, Dogg & Pony mastermind (argh) Sex Sells Magazines impresario, all around fun, funny smart baltimore dude. He does this lo-fi performance art dare I say spoken word kinda post-techno politico beats thing, which I really like and is totally unsurprisingly 5RC.
Yikes, Go! Team next, one of those crazy line bands who people were buzzing all about. Don't believe the hype, my friends. I have yet to listen to the album, but the live thing is like Jane Fonda fronting the Beta Band covering Avalances song, in all the worst ways. Like hip hop shows, it asked too much of my hands, and the tempo wasn't for waving. Yikes! They deserve, at least, that punctuation. Dogs Die In Hot Cars, the post-hype clear out band, did their Please Describe Yourself hits with modest glee, Craig Macintoch not channeling the same vocal bravado of the album but still being even more winsome than his "I Love You Cause I Have To" video, which I saw on Fuse, which seems to rule.
OXES, my other Baltimore bros, totally made my SXSW. Outdoors, one a.m., weird dude crowd amped up for the show. Drummer/ultra-friend Chris gets the whole posse to sing the animal-noise opening to Disturbed song about the sickness. Tight, hilarious, wireless show with excellent heckling "I'm sorry, but you're just not as good as Lightning Bolt," shouted a man who then threw his clothes onto stage. "Oh, he's our friend" Chris said later. Then, then, then, Chris announces "we will not be doing an encore, but a one act play about the existential drama of life, called "oxes do oxes" and, as an audience member had helped move Oxes' famed boxes (they stand on them for more rock visibility) onto the terraced side of this weird hill, and they began 'Also sprach Zarathustra,' which prompted one of the guitarists' to start lumbering around the hill, naked. He had a very convincing neanderthal gait, low-hanging testes and a stick in his hand. Madly accurate? At the pinnacle of the sound, he struck the boxes and they tumbled down onto the patio while everyone cheered. Later, Chris was very concerned to know if the boxes hit anyone. Nice guys, weird concept, fantastic execution.
Saturday started with Matos' ill-advisement to see Savvy, the logical end to one's appreciation for wholesome dance pop. Mickey Mouse Club farm team. It was outside, I had a snow-cone, they all wore headsets and were mostly lip-synching. We made cruel jokes about Berto, who is much more cut in real life and seems to be about ready to be kicked out of neverland.
Checked out the Gigantic showcase...Shelby, I never heard of but were totally awesome three-piece dream pop who seem to have hit their stride on The Luxury of Time, a little Walkmen-y, but who isn't in NYC these days? Speaking of which, I was there to see some old pals in The Cloud Room who are just as serious as their band photos suggest, but sound like a more whimsical early U2, in the best way, with little tinges of one-note Echo and the Bunnymen synths that I just loved.
Off to Making Time (Philllieeee!) to see Pony Up! (snooze) and the Unicorns/Th' Corn Gangg hip hop explosion, which threatened to be pretty rad just as the austin sky opened up. We had to get the hell out, into a cab and over to USE, lest it all come crashing down. Amy P. reported that the show got flooded out and a rock (maybe one loosened from the Oxes show, which was next door) crashed down on the PA. Sorry Dave!
USE. Best. Band. Ever. Sonic Boom put out their older LP last week. Buy it! Love it! Be nice to them, cause they're good people! Packed house, fists waving, rain making wet dog midday drench fest slightly funkadelic, just color-lights-textures-shouts all around good time YA! Matos, Lindsay Thomas, Caleb and I ended up dining with the band, having a lovely chat and then riding off to the 6th street strip with them. And I got to see Motley Crue two weeks ago, how could life get better?
Oh ya, by seeing Buck 65. I loved the Centaur track before, but after seeing him live, I want to just listen to the whole catalog - harsh, strong, absurd poetry packed back, up around beats, metal tracks, dangerous silences, scratching - all the while Richard Tefry, mildly mostly theatrical, in charge of his body, contouring all with one gesture of one muscle, a certain smile punctuating, posture filling out the stanza. genius showman, snakeoil shamen, confessor. Consider me converted.
Already converted to Saul Williams, whose "Black Stacey" has been in my head ever since his following Tefry. Williams' viola player is crazy fierce noise girl, my god. Should have stayed but split for Skeletons, then I Love U But I've Chosen Darkness, and the Waco Brothers. Then, done. Sunday was lovely brunch and sunshine at the statehouse, an airplane full of gig bags and pr girls with all electronics plugged into every available socket in the waiting area. Hilarious!
---
And if that isn't rock critic nerdy enough for you, I came home at 2am, wrote a grant proposal, went to school for eight hours and then went to see Greil Marcus read a paper on Bob Dylan at Columbia, on "Masters of War" and the recent stink about a Boulder, CO high school talent show at which some kids calling themselves 'the coalition of the willing' after scrapping the name 'the tali-band,' pissed off a Clear Channel mom whose kid thought the Dylan lyrics had been changed to advocate the death of the commander in chief. As I type this, I realize that my blog could end up watched by the Secret Service. Bring up my count, fellas! Just kidding, I would prefer the boring anonymity of not being made a criminal for thinking. Anyway, the Dylan-bots had a go about 'is he political' and co-panelist Christopher Ricks tore it up with his uncanny descriptions of Blonde On Blonde album titles and nuanced read of "Masters of War" as part of a self-congratulatory and misguided American mentality in which one side will not grant the other the agency of thought. Marcus was like, 'yes, that's true - but 16 year olds still use it to protest,' and it ground dead. Ricks is a sassy character, a little Parks-like, but lost his temper in the end.
3.19.2005
MIA sabotaged my Thursday
How could I have forgotten that I saw Billy Idol close down Wednesday night? I did, he did. He looked fantasticily plastic there on the Stubb's stage, playing the acoustic guitar badly and shaking all to "Moni Moni," whose chorus I never knew contained the alternate lyrics 'hey, get laid get fucked' but apparently the rest of the crowd had been instructed, shouting along happily while glow sticks were passed around. It reminded me of the Adam Sandler retro 80s flick with little to love, The Wedding Singer, where Idol makes a cameo of himself being silly on a plane. Least frightening OG UK punker?
Thursday....
After some rad breakfast tacos at 'the indie taco stand,' which sounds funny if you don't live in town, these secret maps of local businesses claimed by Austin's sizable indie population, I went to see Kandia Crazy-Horse in a panel with Dave Marsh, Mark Kemp (editor, "Dixie Lullaby" author), Peggy Scott-Adams (pop/blues crossover), Otis Taylor (singer/songwriter) and Kevin Phinney (local radio guy)...panel about race, weirdly and truly had some flux to the question of whiteness as a 'marked catagory' with Marsh making somewhat over the top statements about how white people need spend their whole lives ripping the blinders off, etc.
We got in the car and headed east for the Arthur party, which was in a neighborhood with crazy renagade pinata salespeople. It was a Vice "do's" explosion in The Church of the Friendly Ghost, all big sunglasses and weather inappropriate clothing, whose side yard became a football field for friends of mine. We saw 1/2 of Jennifer Gentle, a band much on the lips down here, whose psych noodling wasn't nearly as impressive as their awesome Sub Pop album, then Wolfmother, who did the trashy Iggy Pop garage thing and got the kids going.
The evening went to shit unless you were one of the lucky few who got into the unsurprisingly popular MIA show. I went to see a Hawk and a Hacksaw, Jeremy Barnes from Neutral Milk Hotel's 'one man band' project gone Romani, full accordion and percussion blow out with a violinist double-stopping in time. He was frighteningly serious about his project and I couldn't help but get on the ethno hat thinking 'if you're going to do this eastern european gypsy thing, you need to get some nuanced inflections into the mix, not just drones' but that's only a half-formed critique.
After doing the dance of diss in the line for Louis XIV and The Futureheads (I might have stayed in line if there weren't a 'liinguiist from Shreeeveport, Luuisiaana' who 'just lovvvveeed language' cause she was 'insanely visual' in front of me skeezing on some online guys), I went to see Austin's Grand Champeen with Tim. They do this early Soul Asylum, winsome big melodic guitar leads and rackus pop thing pretty well, until the bass player steps up and unleashes his sideman songs. Yikes. It was good though to be in an audience full of people who really really loved their band, everyone was singing along.
While wandering around in the what's next phase, I saw a man playing that Bowling for Soup song '1985' while lounging on a park bench. He was being very soulful about it, it made me intensely happy.
Closed the evening with The Hold Steady, who were packed in this tiny corner of a bar obviously not meant to be a venue. Craig Finn was on point, waving his arms and caressing the mic while sprinkling the night with references to Minneapolis, Chicago, LA, Ybor City...a profusion of words of places near and far.
Thursday....
After some rad breakfast tacos at 'the indie taco stand,' which sounds funny if you don't live in town, these secret maps of local businesses claimed by Austin's sizable indie population, I went to see Kandia Crazy-Horse in a panel with Dave Marsh, Mark Kemp (editor, "Dixie Lullaby" author), Peggy Scott-Adams (pop/blues crossover), Otis Taylor (singer/songwriter) and Kevin Phinney (local radio guy)...panel about race, weirdly and truly had some flux to the question of whiteness as a 'marked catagory' with Marsh making somewhat over the top statements about how white people need spend their whole lives ripping the blinders off, etc.
We got in the car and headed east for the Arthur party, which was in a neighborhood with crazy renagade pinata salespeople. It was a Vice "do's" explosion in The Church of the Friendly Ghost, all big sunglasses and weather inappropriate clothing, whose side yard became a football field for friends of mine. We saw 1/2 of Jennifer Gentle, a band much on the lips down here, whose psych noodling wasn't nearly as impressive as their awesome Sub Pop album, then Wolfmother, who did the trashy Iggy Pop garage thing and got the kids going.
The evening went to shit unless you were one of the lucky few who got into the unsurprisingly popular MIA show. I went to see a Hawk and a Hacksaw, Jeremy Barnes from Neutral Milk Hotel's 'one man band' project gone Romani, full accordion and percussion blow out with a violinist double-stopping in time. He was frighteningly serious about his project and I couldn't help but get on the ethno hat thinking 'if you're going to do this eastern european gypsy thing, you need to get some nuanced inflections into the mix, not just drones' but that's only a half-formed critique.
After doing the dance of diss in the line for Louis XIV and The Futureheads (I might have stayed in line if there weren't a 'liinguiist from Shreeeveport, Luuisiaana' who 'just lovvvveeed language' cause she was 'insanely visual' in front of me skeezing on some online guys), I went to see Austin's Grand Champeen with Tim. They do this early Soul Asylum, winsome big melodic guitar leads and rackus pop thing pretty well, until the bass player steps up and unleashes his sideman songs. Yikes. It was good though to be in an audience full of people who really really loved their band, everyone was singing along.
While wandering around in the what's next phase, I saw a man playing that Bowling for Soup song '1985' while lounging on a park bench. He was being very soulful about it, it made me intensely happy.
Closed the evening with The Hold Steady, who were packed in this tiny corner of a bar obviously not meant to be a venue. Craig Finn was on point, waving his arms and caressing the mic while sprinkling the night with references to Minneapolis, Chicago, LA, Ybor City...a profusion of words of places near and far.
3.17.2005
sxsw, exteme pygmy slaying music, day 1 and 2
Here's my Village Voice Motley Crue piece, covering the MSG show. I had twenty small, scrawled pages of notes about the show, mostly with things like "nikki - secret brain trust, boxy dude, how come he's so glam still?' and 'trapeze girls in flesh-colored body suits, more athletic than curvy, the Crue gets fitter, happier?" Also, I ran into a dude in a one-piece mechanics outfit buying shots of whisky in the lobby and he was going around making everyone touch his little swatch of Christo fabric. Highly weird.
So...SXSW. Day one/two.
Came in. We're staying at this frightening Days Inn direclty under the I-35 overpass. Caleb said, "if you think about it, it sort of sounds like the sea." The pool is opaque, we are next door to the 24-hour drunk indie rock diner. There are rock stars in our hotel and other people seemed to have been bumped to the airport, so I guess all is okay.
Did the badge thing, minor drama, and saw Tim Quirk talking about 'how to sell your music online.' He's a dear friend, and a hilarious speaker who uses the mic to school everyone about how punk bands should do things in the 21st century.
We started off the night seeing British-hype bandSelfish Cunt, who did this mix of gutter-punk improv and Wayne County provocation while the lead singer gesticulated in a boyish clown suit a la scrubby David Bowie. Best part = they had a video man who moved in time to the music, capturing the audience, if he was taping at all, is spastic bursts while he skipped around Club DeVille.
Twenty minutes in to Les Georges Leningrad, who had Weimar Rep. style dear antler cut outs on stage and some Providence-style masking, I knew I had to get out, before their awesome but totally repetititve no-wave dance rock started sucking me dry. Friend Tim had spotted Dr. Dog earlier in the day, and liked them, so we went over and watched their corny indie pop with glee. The one guitarist was wearing those funny 80s sunglasses with the neon sides and looked like Dave Pirner, but it was still good. All night Tim kept telling people 'ya, Dr. Dog, they have this song that goes ...do do do. do do do, do waaaa.' That is what SXSW seems to be about to me. I'm sure 20 more Dr. Dog fans were made by Tim's efforts.
I ran into my friend Paul who does Hockey Night who told me the excellent news that they signed to Lookout! Hockey Night sounds like a cross between Modest Mouse and Thin Lizzy, in all the best ways. Paul is going to rule the indie pop/rock crossover world like no one has.
Saw Caleb's old pals The Motey Lemon who should, in Sandy Pearlman's words, 'name that last song 'pygmie slaying music' because it is just total destruction, like the UN is going to come in and finish the job. mass graves,' which is just about the best endorsement possible. Tim said they had the best bass sound he'd ever heard. I liked the dude in the sweater vest.
I ran out of steam after that. It's 10:47am, I missed Robert Plant's lecture. What the hell is he doing up so early anyway...
So...SXSW. Day one/two.
Came in. We're staying at this frightening Days Inn direclty under the I-35 overpass. Caleb said, "if you think about it, it sort of sounds like the sea." The pool is opaque, we are next door to the 24-hour drunk indie rock diner. There are rock stars in our hotel and other people seemed to have been bumped to the airport, so I guess all is okay.
Did the badge thing, minor drama, and saw Tim Quirk talking about 'how to sell your music online.' He's a dear friend, and a hilarious speaker who uses the mic to school everyone about how punk bands should do things in the 21st century.
We started off the night seeing British-hype bandSelfish Cunt, who did this mix of gutter-punk improv and Wayne County provocation while the lead singer gesticulated in a boyish clown suit a la scrubby David Bowie. Best part = they had a video man who moved in time to the music, capturing the audience, if he was taping at all, is spastic bursts while he skipped around Club DeVille.
Twenty minutes in to Les Georges Leningrad, who had Weimar Rep. style dear antler cut outs on stage and some Providence-style masking, I knew I had to get out, before their awesome but totally repetititve no-wave dance rock started sucking me dry. Friend Tim had spotted Dr. Dog earlier in the day, and liked them, so we went over and watched their corny indie pop with glee. The one guitarist was wearing those funny 80s sunglasses with the neon sides and looked like Dave Pirner, but it was still good. All night Tim kept telling people 'ya, Dr. Dog, they have this song that goes ...do do do. do do do, do waaaa.' That is what SXSW seems to be about to me. I'm sure 20 more Dr. Dog fans were made by Tim's efforts.
I ran into my friend Paul who does Hockey Night who told me the excellent news that they signed to Lookout! Hockey Night sounds like a cross between Modest Mouse and Thin Lizzy, in all the best ways. Paul is going to rule the indie pop/rock crossover world like no one has.
Saw Caleb's old pals The Motey Lemon who should, in Sandy Pearlman's words, 'name that last song 'pygmie slaying music' because it is just total destruction, like the UN is going to come in and finish the job. mass graves,' which is just about the best endorsement possible. Tim said they had the best bass sound he'd ever heard. I liked the dude in the sweater vest.
I ran out of steam after that. It's 10:47am, I missed Robert Plant's lecture. What the hell is he doing up so early anyway...
3.12.2005
going to the desert
first, a plug - the new Boxing Issue of Stop Smiling is out - get it!
Also, my stories on the Main Squeeze Orchestra and The Tiny are out now in Venus...
I've been out of touch, and probably will be some more - sxsw rambling begins tomorrow when I fly out to san diego. Geographers will note that this is not a great commute, alas, at 20 hour drive through the desert stands between this so called fiesta of beef and beer. will i live through it? well, that is a matter for me, my driver, and the frog eyes CDs i will likely have to toss in new mexico.
One of my favorite daydreams is the genetic modification of my favorite pop bands into the perfect daphne c. fronted hybrid, and I have recently decided to add 1981-1985 era Pet Shop Boys to my mixture, which I think tosses the whole dream straight into dance rock. I think I'm a few years too late on this, and for that I fully embrace my post-nostalgia. I would be happy with just deadcenter bullet of one lyric like "We've got no future, we've got no past. Here today, built to last."
Other stolen articles from = Richard Butler, vocals from Talk Talk Talk; timbral sensitivity from Jason Pierce, Lazer Guided Melodies and Xtian Fennesz, Endless Summer; sense of suspended time "No Clocks" (more than a pun, listen to it) by Pylon, Chomp; guitar bite - T. Moore and L. Ranaldo, Sister; timid fierceness, Mary Timony Dirt of Luck (maybe even a little of that Ash Bowie bass sound)...
(okay, this might not sound like a dance song to you, but it does to me)
IN OTHER NEWS
Went to the Dali exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with my dad today - what a ridiculous spectacle. And you thought art was dead! I would like it if the curator was actually a contemporary artist whose happening it was to get a bunch of stoned teenagers to walk around with headphones on bumping into 80-year-old bluehair aristocrats looking at paintings about masturbation. (confession, I've been to both Figueres, Spain and Coral Gables, Fl. - the two more famous spots of his work, umm, when I was a little younger, beautiful and...) Well, I did like it some, mostly for the ants. They say decay, but I'd like to think of ants in that case as all the thoughts that run in the mind, seemingly independently, though they appear in clusters - the conscious mind wandering. The ants appear when lurking thoughts get made real, and Freud said that the surreal only makes us think about what is conscious, not unconscious. Ants are the grotesque, fear, interior - decay?
Philly was beautiful, forgiving and soft today - the flags flapping and the City Hall looking very regal. Sometimes I miss it.
Also, my stories on the Main Squeeze Orchestra and The Tiny are out now in Venus...
I've been out of touch, and probably will be some more - sxsw rambling begins tomorrow when I fly out to san diego. Geographers will note that this is not a great commute, alas, at 20 hour drive through the desert stands between this so called fiesta of beef and beer. will i live through it? well, that is a matter for me, my driver, and the frog eyes CDs i will likely have to toss in new mexico.
One of my favorite daydreams is the genetic modification of my favorite pop bands into the perfect daphne c. fronted hybrid, and I have recently decided to add 1981-1985 era Pet Shop Boys to my mixture, which I think tosses the whole dream straight into dance rock. I think I'm a few years too late on this, and for that I fully embrace my post-nostalgia. I would be happy with just deadcenter bullet of one lyric like "We've got no future, we've got no past. Here today, built to last."
Other stolen articles from = Richard Butler, vocals from Talk Talk Talk; timbral sensitivity from Jason Pierce, Lazer Guided Melodies and Xtian Fennesz, Endless Summer; sense of suspended time "No Clocks" (more than a pun, listen to it) by Pylon, Chomp; guitar bite - T. Moore and L. Ranaldo, Sister; timid fierceness, Mary Timony Dirt of Luck (maybe even a little of that Ash Bowie bass sound)...
(okay, this might not sound like a dance song to you, but it does to me)
IN OTHER NEWS
Went to the Dali exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with my dad today - what a ridiculous spectacle. And you thought art was dead! I would like it if the curator was actually a contemporary artist whose happening it was to get a bunch of stoned teenagers to walk around with headphones on bumping into 80-year-old bluehair aristocrats looking at paintings about masturbation. (confession, I've been to both Figueres, Spain and Coral Gables, Fl. - the two more famous spots of his work, umm, when I was a little younger, beautiful and...) Well, I did like it some, mostly for the ants. They say decay, but I'd like to think of ants in that case as all the thoughts that run in the mind, seemingly independently, though they appear in clusters - the conscious mind wandering. The ants appear when lurking thoughts get made real, and Freud said that the surreal only makes us think about what is conscious, not unconscious. Ants are the grotesque, fear, interior - decay?
Philly was beautiful, forgiving and soft today - the flags flapping and the City Hall looking very regal. Sometimes I miss it.
3.02.2005
fake drums, mbv, pure sound/pure writing
Am taking transcription and analysis, known coquettishly as T&A, this semester. After fumbling around with 1) score paper and 2) waveform analysis, we have 'moved on' to and older way of transcribing. Writing. I was asked to 'write a transcription of a song I know well.'
Yikes. In writing what I have below, I realize that I need to think again about my views on writing about sound as such. It's something that I do every day and don't think about as a system, or rather, I have a 'stock answer' for how I do it. That is scary, and probably bad. My ideas have changed a lot about 'the music itself' and how to go about capturing it if it needs to be pinned somehow. What is your favorite piece of writing about sound, or about how to write about sound? I would very much love comments about it so I can go get a fresh batch of inspiration.
- - - -
Four synthetic snare hits, no randomizer. Silence. An explosion, sweetly of intro in eight bars. Fender guitar into Marshall Shred Master, Boss EQ, Boss EQ, Boss Tremolo, Boss Tremolo, Digitech Whammy, Digitech sampler, Dunlop Rovovibe, preamp into MIDI control, out to preamp stereo Marshall stacks. All lights on, all stomps stomped – chaos. Swoons down from over the one to the two, vaguely could you put one pitch you’d say D down to A just between three and four, but the distortion and the delay flay guitar sound around the beat, making fuzz and taffy of whatever motion one man’s hand made to make this sound.
He takes this big phrase and doubles it, with the second chance all these coils and frays go through one more chain, a whammy bar, which makes the bend, the hook, the beginning. Tremolo comes over all, its own instrument, living a life extended past the guitar. Matched beneath, turn down the stereo, is a synthesizer sound, treble strings as late reverberations of the swaying guitar. The bass is simple, mid-range G, F to B flat C maybe finger picked though the rhythm within the note contour is largely lost, the bottom hovering hooky in the middle of the phrase, repeated eight times – a simple phrase, repeated. This line is a bed, so simply for the drama unfolding on it. Drums, machine made, weirdly up in the mix – its alien plodding ‘kick drum snare’ after lead in, only changed to repeat the fill two times more. One time more, before…before. Verse.
My Bloody Valentine, opening track of Loveless, “Only Shallow,” released in November 1991. Albums of the year include Nirvana’s Nevermind, U2’s “Achtung Baby,” Primal Scream’s “Screamadelica,” Pearl Jam’s “Ten,” Massive Attack’s “Blue Lines,’ Guns n’ Roses “Use Your Illusion II,” REM’s “Out of Time,” Tori Amos’ “Little Earthquakes,” and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Blood Sugar Sex Magik.” 1991. The year punk broke. The birth of the alternative nation, history will read.
An alternate history doesn’t begin, but breaks, in these forty-seven seconds. Guitar as texture, noise as melody, melody as badge of courage, pop song as art vessel, drum machine willfully inhabiting rock sphere, studio as band and later, in the song, vocal as instrument, feminine gender still mysterious, but powerful.
This is not Kurt Cobain’s eyeliner, dress and Pro-Choice rally – it is beyond sartorial, a different bubble of underground values made musical, beginning yes with the Velvet Underground but moving across the ocean, dolled up, reconnected to the blues but sometimes torn away again. The band’s leader, Kevin Shields – whose 500,000 dollar recording cost, perfectionism and reclusion got him what he always wanted, the genius tag – is not originally from Scotland, but Queens, New York. And from that rag pile to the myth, no trace of the individual, like the hundreds of overdubs that make Loveless a shimmering, hard to pin down thing. He matters because you cannot see him but you know that by his touch, this thing has been made great.
The album art is crucial – oversaturated, pink like flesh and girlie things, but made brighter – the shadow and glare form a smear of guitar, a man’s instrument, obscured – neutral without the neutered. Here is a glimpse of one man’s utopian vision of heart matters in a time on the cusp – the 1990s, a time for hardcore boys like Cobain and metal men like Soundgarden to be big, but for effete songsmiths like Billy Corgan and indeed, for so many women-fronted rock bands, to carve out another sonic space. Loveless offers itself between the gender lines, a boy in pink, a guitar without a solo.
My Bloody Valentine was part of movement with so many pedals that they called it ‘shoegazer.’ It was always called that because its many boys were so awkward. That is why the album, this album, is so important to its history. No people inhabit it, really, though people contributed to it. But here, building up is erasing, erasing is hiding, hiding is safety. This is the sound of one man’s safe place made public. The snare hits let you know you are knocking on his door.
No other band of the time could manage to shut out the world so successfully while managing, in under a minute, to set some part of it afire.
Yikes. In writing what I have below, I realize that I need to think again about my views on writing about sound as such. It's something that I do every day and don't think about as a system, or rather, I have a 'stock answer' for how I do it. That is scary, and probably bad. My ideas have changed a lot about 'the music itself' and how to go about capturing it if it needs to be pinned somehow. What is your favorite piece of writing about sound, or about how to write about sound? I would very much love comments about it so I can go get a fresh batch of inspiration.
- - - -
Four synthetic snare hits, no randomizer. Silence. An explosion, sweetly of intro in eight bars. Fender guitar into Marshall Shred Master, Boss EQ, Boss EQ, Boss Tremolo, Boss Tremolo, Digitech Whammy, Digitech sampler, Dunlop Rovovibe, preamp into MIDI control, out to preamp stereo Marshall stacks. All lights on, all stomps stomped – chaos. Swoons down from over the one to the two, vaguely could you put one pitch you’d say D down to A just between three and four, but the distortion and the delay flay guitar sound around the beat, making fuzz and taffy of whatever motion one man’s hand made to make this sound.
He takes this big phrase and doubles it, with the second chance all these coils and frays go through one more chain, a whammy bar, which makes the bend, the hook, the beginning. Tremolo comes over all, its own instrument, living a life extended past the guitar. Matched beneath, turn down the stereo, is a synthesizer sound, treble strings as late reverberations of the swaying guitar. The bass is simple, mid-range G, F to B flat C maybe finger picked though the rhythm within the note contour is largely lost, the bottom hovering hooky in the middle of the phrase, repeated eight times – a simple phrase, repeated. This line is a bed, so simply for the drama unfolding on it. Drums, machine made, weirdly up in the mix – its alien plodding ‘kick drum snare’ after lead in, only changed to repeat the fill two times more. One time more, before…before. Verse.
My Bloody Valentine, opening track of Loveless, “Only Shallow,” released in November 1991. Albums of the year include Nirvana’s Nevermind, U2’s “Achtung Baby,” Primal Scream’s “Screamadelica,” Pearl Jam’s “Ten,” Massive Attack’s “Blue Lines,’ Guns n’ Roses “Use Your Illusion II,” REM’s “Out of Time,” Tori Amos’ “Little Earthquakes,” and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Blood Sugar Sex Magik.” 1991. The year punk broke. The birth of the alternative nation, history will read.
An alternate history doesn’t begin, but breaks, in these forty-seven seconds. Guitar as texture, noise as melody, melody as badge of courage, pop song as art vessel, drum machine willfully inhabiting rock sphere, studio as band and later, in the song, vocal as instrument, feminine gender still mysterious, but powerful.
This is not Kurt Cobain’s eyeliner, dress and Pro-Choice rally – it is beyond sartorial, a different bubble of underground values made musical, beginning yes with the Velvet Underground but moving across the ocean, dolled up, reconnected to the blues but sometimes torn away again. The band’s leader, Kevin Shields – whose 500,000 dollar recording cost, perfectionism and reclusion got him what he always wanted, the genius tag – is not originally from Scotland, but Queens, New York. And from that rag pile to the myth, no trace of the individual, like the hundreds of overdubs that make Loveless a shimmering, hard to pin down thing. He matters because you cannot see him but you know that by his touch, this thing has been made great.
The album art is crucial – oversaturated, pink like flesh and girlie things, but made brighter – the shadow and glare form a smear of guitar, a man’s instrument, obscured – neutral without the neutered. Here is a glimpse of one man’s utopian vision of heart matters in a time on the cusp – the 1990s, a time for hardcore boys like Cobain and metal men like Soundgarden to be big, but for effete songsmiths like Billy Corgan and indeed, for so many women-fronted rock bands, to carve out another sonic space. Loveless offers itself between the gender lines, a boy in pink, a guitar without a solo.
My Bloody Valentine was part of movement with so many pedals that they called it ‘shoegazer.’ It was always called that because its many boys were so awkward. That is why the album, this album, is so important to its history. No people inhabit it, really, though people contributed to it. But here, building up is erasing, erasing is hiding, hiding is safety. This is the sound of one man’s safe place made public. The snare hits let you know you are knocking on his door.
No other band of the time could manage to shut out the world so successfully while managing, in under a minute, to set some part of it afire.
3.01.2005
blanket at the beach
Last night I saw Ratatat and The Double at the Knit - went to see the Double on the strength of the song "Blanket on the Beach," which was a constant hum-along on the drive back from Seattle this summer (singing in cars as one of life's great pleasures). The set was shakey, ill-planned and lacking in dynamics, evidence that the duo turned foursome might still have their heads in the studio than in the show. I guess signing to Matador will shake them of that. I always worry about bands that compensate noise for complexity of song form - or do i? ...of song forms, and freedom? anyway, they're abcdbefb kinda thing reminds me lovingly of my old band's songwriting umm...strategy - make a bunch of awesome parts, sew them together, put the awesome-ist parts in twice. Voila! it works for sonic youth, it worked for us.
re: Ratatat, okay, ya, I just moved back to NYC and I feel like I missed the joke. Great bandname, very good hair and lovely backgrounds - even love the ebow guitarmonies and the headbanging, only - it's so...it's so...midtempo. Metal and downtempo really do belong together as the privledged space of nerdy white dudes.
IN OTHER NEWS Here is my EMP Pop Conference abstract if you were wondering. Any info about Central European dance music history - by golly, send it!
re: Ratatat, okay, ya, I just moved back to NYC and I feel like I missed the joke. Great bandname, very good hair and lovely backgrounds - even love the ebow guitarmonies and the headbanging, only - it's so...it's so...midtempo. Metal and downtempo really do belong together as the privledged space of nerdy white dudes.
IN OTHER NEWS Here is my EMP Pop Conference abstract if you were wondering. Any info about Central European dance music history - by golly, send it!
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