"We thought turntables were for playing records until rappers began to use them as instruments, and we thought airplanes were for carrying passengers until terrorists realized they could be used as missiles," says Mr. Baxter, who sports a ponytail and handlebar mustache." ...nuff said.
Does that mean that rappers are the terrorists of pop music?
5.27.2005
we have a war
1) The Daphne Brooks "Jeff Buckley's Grace" reading went so far beyond my expectations I can't even just say, 'it went really well.' The venue was perfect, the house was packed (sorry but thanks to those who stood in the back) and all the books we ordered were sold so that D. Brooks fans could get autographs. Also, duh, Daphne's reading was fabu - she read from her introduction and her analysis of the "Hallelujah" section - putting into practice what the 'rockism' debate tries to encourage - expanding borders of the canon and who writes about it, and how. Good questions too, none of that 'pontificating in the guise of a ???' bs.
2) Left dinner to see the last of the Fischerspooner shows at The Canal Room. Holy brocade and wife-beater, Batman, it's 2005! The band came out in full pancake with silver-grey pomade making them look like wedding cake figurines. Okay, actually, their drummer was wearing a yellow basketball outfit but who cares, because if there's one thing that doesn't matter about Fischerspooner, surely it's the live drums.
On "Get Confused," this bizarre woman who'd been in the VIP section making exotic bird noises got on stage and danced with Casey. After the song he exclaimed that he, 'didn't know she was packing heat,' and asked her what she did for a living, "Date guys like you..." 'what does that mean,' "Guys with money." He then very publically asked her to get off the stage and asked for a shot of tequilla "petrone, please." Later, I called Amy and recounted the show, most of which matched up entirely with her experience at the show last week. Was this queen-humilation moment planned too? I doubt it, but it was really odd, esp. considering the woman was in the VIP section.
Also, during "We Need a War," which Casey enhanced with deeper, playfully dark singing (he had thrown off the earpiece he was wearing all night that was feeding him guide-vocals) after the exclamation "get political people, yahhh!" two very attractive topless women got on stage and danced while the guitarist played a sort of raunchy solo, then making out while Casey finished the set, and the night. It reminded me of Tim Quirk's EMP paper about women who flash at concerts, and whether this is a liberating or humilating thing. I would have to say in this context it was, at the very least, sadly misguided on the part of the women and ignorant on the part of Casey. I mean, Susan Sontag wrote the lyrics to the song...and it's about...war....Is war sexy topless dancing? In the one weird and maybe misguided gesture of Fischerspooner, it was the most misguided thing - or was it the audience begging FS to just keep emerging? They did, twice, the first time Casey saying, "I'm bored with this song, it's sooo 2000, no, so 1990...eight!' and then, sadly and without build-up or audience request, he called for it again. Confetti flew and vocals glitch/sped but even the band seemed bored. After the lights went up, Carlos D began to DJ and I knew, like I've felt so many times at shows, that I had to get the hell out before something stuck to me.
2) Left dinner to see the last of the Fischerspooner shows at The Canal Room. Holy brocade and wife-beater, Batman, it's 2005! The band came out in full pancake with silver-grey pomade making them look like wedding cake figurines. Okay, actually, their drummer was wearing a yellow basketball outfit but who cares, because if there's one thing that doesn't matter about Fischerspooner, surely it's the live drums.
On "Get Confused," this bizarre woman who'd been in the VIP section making exotic bird noises got on stage and danced with Casey. After the song he exclaimed that he, 'didn't know she was packing heat,' and asked her what she did for a living, "Date guys like you..." 'what does that mean,' "Guys with money." He then very publically asked her to get off the stage and asked for a shot of tequilla "petrone, please." Later, I called Amy and recounted the show, most of which matched up entirely with her experience at the show last week. Was this queen-humilation moment planned too? I doubt it, but it was really odd, esp. considering the woman was in the VIP section.
Also, during "We Need a War," which Casey enhanced with deeper, playfully dark singing (he had thrown off the earpiece he was wearing all night that was feeding him guide-vocals) after the exclamation "get political people, yahhh!" two very attractive topless women got on stage and danced while the guitarist played a sort of raunchy solo, then making out while Casey finished the set, and the night. It reminded me of Tim Quirk's EMP paper about women who flash at concerts, and whether this is a liberating or humilating thing. I would have to say in this context it was, at the very least, sadly misguided on the part of the women and ignorant on the part of Casey. I mean, Susan Sontag wrote the lyrics to the song...and it's about...war....Is war sexy topless dancing? In the one weird and maybe misguided gesture of Fischerspooner, it was the most misguided thing - or was it the audience begging FS to just keep emerging? They did, twice, the first time Casey saying, "I'm bored with this song, it's sooo 2000, no, so 1990...eight!' and then, sadly and without build-up or audience request, he called for it again. Confetti flew and vocals glitch/sped but even the band seemed bored. After the lights went up, Carlos D began to DJ and I knew, like I've felt so many times at shows, that I had to get the hell out before something stuck to me.
5.25.2005
Czech progress will tear us apart
tomorrow is Daphne Brooks' reading at Cake Shop, NYC. 7pm. As Alf said, be there or be square.
Just saw Progress Plus at the Boho Beer Hall in Queens, a most wonderful experience - sadly there were only about 20 people there, but the band played a full set going from insane post-Bryne funk-synth "Africa" to quasi-industrial backed darkwave "Válka je Vul" (War is a bull). Actually, they sort of sounded like solo-era Steve Winwood, and as a three-piece, carried most of their weight in their intense Korg workstation.
Just listened to Nouvelle Vague's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," (umm, what's the big deal, the season of the coy, half-interesting chanteuse), which makes me want to dig out my red clear vinyl version of that song by the Swans. Heresy, I know, but I actually prefer that version to the original. Michael Gira's blunt, often artless delivery is so sweet and well-timed on that track. Love Will Tear Us Apart is, in fact, the only song that I have entirely heard in a dream, and I was dancing in my dream.
IN OTHER NEWS:
apparently billy joel has gone on a psycho bender.
Just saw Progress Plus at the Boho Beer Hall in Queens, a most wonderful experience - sadly there were only about 20 people there, but the band played a full set going from insane post-Bryne funk-synth "Africa" to quasi-industrial backed darkwave "Válka je Vul" (War is a bull). Actually, they sort of sounded like solo-era Steve Winwood, and as a three-piece, carried most of their weight in their intense Korg workstation.
Just listened to Nouvelle Vague's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," (umm, what's the big deal, the season of the coy, half-interesting chanteuse), which makes me want to dig out my red clear vinyl version of that song by the Swans. Heresy, I know, but I actually prefer that version to the original. Michael Gira's blunt, often artless delivery is so sweet and well-timed on that track. Love Will Tear Us Apart is, in fact, the only song that I have entirely heard in a dream, and I was dancing in my dream.
IN OTHER NEWS:
apparently billy joel has gone on a psycho bender.
5.23.2005
plastic people of the universe
Just saw a double-dose of the Plastic People of the Universe at Joe's Pub - most excellent. Sax and clarinet player Vratislav Brabenec is one of the most captivating performers, bopping around to the dark, swirly motives of the band with his own jagged and wonderful sense of melody. Sadly, I never got to see them with Milan Hlavsa, but tonight their new bass player, named Ana?!?, kept the groove well and added sultry vocals to many of their best tracks, changing their brooding a tiny bit. If you're interested, a documentary about the band is been screened at the NY Czech Center on Tuesday, May 24. Will be there, no doubt.
5.18.2005
Daphne Brooks reads May 26, 7pm NYC
I'm excited to announce that Zoe Gemelli and I, in association with the listserv Girl Group, have put together a reading for the wonderful writer, academic and all around badass lady Daphne Brooks. Please join us for this reading:
Daphne Brooks reads from her new book
Jeff Buckley's Grace, part of the 33 1/3 series
Thursday May, 26 7pm
The Cake Shop, NYC
152 Ludlow
http://www.cake-shop.com/
There will be copies of the book for sale at the store. It's a great new record store, coffee shop, bar and venue on the LES - like Sound and Fury and then some - so please come out to support an awesome writer in a great new space.
5.17.2005
PINE*am is awesome!!! / Exodus Damage and the shock
Secret: I used to be a big jpop fan, and when a publicist asked me to go see PINE*am, I popped over to their website and listened to a few tracks and said yes, expecting to be at best, not totally disappointed. Let me tell you something people - after my USE conversion, I think that I've come to a new understanding about jpop, and PINE*am are a great new find in my listening world.
Yes, they played the show in matching outfits and yes it was hard to tell who was the most tangibly adorable. But, then they played - and sounded like a more energetic, happier and downright funkier New Order or like a damn chic Delta 5 - rad little retro keys, samples, live bass and guitar and all three sing, including the call/response with harmonies that might be the best part of the best kind of pop music. The only song that disappointed me was the one where I told my friend 'Satie should sue them for this,' later to find out its name is " Gymnopedie 0.1." Ach, crossover?!? Anyway, they'll be in Portland and then Seattle later this week, so if you're out that way, go see them damn it.
--
Listening to John Vanderslice's new album, Pixel Revolt, which has a great track, "Exodus Damage." It starts of sounding like "Atlantic City," for a second, then gets kinda new wavy with some Radiohead synth, and the first lyrics are "I'll see you next fall at another gun show...," which is probably the first ever mention of going to a gun show in a pop song that I know of. Anyway, the chorus starts with this amazing Rhodes sound and the words "Dance dance revolution." Second verse: about the world trade center. So the second plane fell at 9 o 2. Saw it on a hotel t.v. talking on a cell with you... - jarring. "Dance dance revolution,all we're going to get unless it falls apart, so I say go, go go down. Let it fall down, I'm ready for the end." Hardly the Rising.
(9/11) weird that reverberations only start sounding as sense now. Like with Daniel Givens' new CD - in my interview with him for Grooves he said he wanted to capture the sound of souls going up all at once in that horror, that was the sound he thought about when sitting alone in his room in Bushwick at 3am. He too mentioned the dance dance revolution, ticking Le Tigre for ignoring their New Yorkness in all of the horror. Funny, because I was supposed to interview Kathleen Hanna that day, the day the towers fell. I kept calling their publicist after it happened because I guessed I would have to cancel my interview - I was too shocked to understand the magnitude. Listening to this song is like that shock, a little - oh ya, you know, this shit just only happened, people still think about it every day. Like my landlord's daughter, who works at the airport while she could make more money elsewhere, but she believes that by being a package inspector for commercial air shipping is her way of doing good as tribute to people she knew who died that day.
Yes, they played the show in matching outfits and yes it was hard to tell who was the most tangibly adorable. But, then they played - and sounded like a more energetic, happier and downright funkier New Order or like a damn chic Delta 5 - rad little retro keys, samples, live bass and guitar and all three sing, including the call/response with harmonies that might be the best part of the best kind of pop music. The only song that disappointed me was the one where I told my friend 'Satie should sue them for this,' later to find out its name is " Gymnopedie 0.1." Ach, crossover?!? Anyway, they'll be in Portland and then Seattle later this week, so if you're out that way, go see them damn it.
--
Listening to John Vanderslice's new album, Pixel Revolt, which has a great track, "Exodus Damage." It starts of sounding like "Atlantic City," for a second, then gets kinda new wavy with some Radiohead synth, and the first lyrics are "I'll see you next fall at another gun show...," which is probably the first ever mention of going to a gun show in a pop song that I know of. Anyway, the chorus starts with this amazing Rhodes sound and the words "Dance dance revolution." Second verse: about the world trade center. So the second plane fell at 9 o 2. Saw it on a hotel t.v. talking on a cell with you... - jarring. "Dance dance revolution,all we're going to get unless it falls apart, so I say go, go go down. Let it fall down, I'm ready for the end." Hardly the Rising.
(9/11) weird that reverberations only start sounding as sense now. Like with Daniel Givens' new CD - in my interview with him for Grooves he said he wanted to capture the sound of souls going up all at once in that horror, that was the sound he thought about when sitting alone in his room in Bushwick at 3am. He too mentioned the dance dance revolution, ticking Le Tigre for ignoring their New Yorkness in all of the horror. Funny, because I was supposed to interview Kathleen Hanna that day, the day the towers fell. I kept calling their publicist after it happened because I guessed I would have to cancel my interview - I was too shocked to understand the magnitude. Listening to this song is like that shock, a little - oh ya, you know, this shit just only happened, people still think about it every day. Like my landlord's daughter, who works at the airport while she could make more money elsewhere, but she believes that by being a package inspector for commercial air shipping is her way of doing good as tribute to people she knew who died that day.
5.16.2005
not more music, more news
Some news bits:
This little rant about the tyranny of futura bold italic reminds me of the "david bauw-ie" comment made by Avril - somehow we expect the next generation to build from what the last has done, to know it and reference it smartly, but often its just some haphazard application of known quantities - how much reverb can i put on this - is that galaxie 500? how out of tune can i sing? is that the television personalities?
In a truly frightening move, the Bush Admin. and Republican circus is calling to cut funding to NPR because of their liberal bias, and want to replace national news programs with 'more music':
"We heard sentiments from the board that they are interested in support of more music," said Vincent Curran, a senior vice president in charge of the radio division. He said that the board had made no final decisions on funds.
In one of the few times you will ever read this on my blog, I advocate that they play less music and talk more about how insanely corrupt and evil our government is, and say it loud and often until somebody listens.
This little rant about the tyranny of futura bold italic reminds me of the "david bauw-ie" comment made by Avril - somehow we expect the next generation to build from what the last has done, to know it and reference it smartly, but often its just some haphazard application of known quantities - how much reverb can i put on this - is that galaxie 500? how out of tune can i sing? is that the television personalities?
In a truly frightening move, the Bush Admin. and Republican circus is calling to cut funding to NPR because of their liberal bias, and want to replace national news programs with 'more music':
"We heard sentiments from the board that they are interested in support of more music," said Vincent Curran, a senior vice president in charge of the radio division. He said that the board had made no final decisions on funds.
In one of the few times you will ever read this on my blog, I advocate that they play less music and talk more about how insanely corrupt and evil our government is, and say it loud and often until somebody listens.
5.15.2005
rock bottom riser, and other thoughts
DEEP THOUGHTS:
-What if 00's mainstream punk will be known as the hairmetal of our generation, I mean. Good Charlotte - black hairdye, bad skin, funny, predictable uniforms - how is that not 1/2 of Motley Crue?
-Finished reading Douglas Wolk's Live at the Apollo 33 1/3 last night at 3.33am last night. How smart is Douglas Wolk? I imagine that every single traced down origin of James Brown's love and theft for the session just came from the top of his noggin, tho I'm sure his extreme modesty would not allow me to find him so effortlessly brilliant. Believe the hype.
-Just finished my Feist review. C'mon, Feist? Like that PJ bassline, the Bee Gee's cover, but c'mon - Feist. When will Big Black Jr. fall down from the sky to make for a new sound in rock? Did I just write that - not gender, but lack of bullshit, fay naivete. I'm sick of cute.
-Went to see a James Tenney piece at the Whitney at Altria - one of these 'feel free to move around the venue during the performance' pieces, called "For piano and..." - sections of the ensemble were all around, a quartet here, brass there, percussion, Jenny Lin at the piano. It was a low tone cluster, high overtone meditation - La Monte Young feeling but with some Western harmony thrown in, moving shiftless but disernable. I actually conquered my teeming brain and heard through it to extreme spatial separation, like seeing every feather in a headdress laid side by side, then bound together in order. A lot of times I feel like concert experiences like this become that - Cagian lessons in hearing. Is personal transendance the point, though - is tuning in for a moment anything more than that? I dunno, but I was happy to have done it.
-speaking of 'getting it' i have finally wandered through my boredom with Smog and decided that Rock Bottom Riser, off the new record, is my melancholic jam of the moment. Bill C. 12th album in 13 years. what else have i missed?
-What if 00's mainstream punk will be known as the hairmetal of our generation, I mean. Good Charlotte - black hairdye, bad skin, funny, predictable uniforms - how is that not 1/2 of Motley Crue?
-Finished reading Douglas Wolk's Live at the Apollo 33 1/3 last night at 3.33am last night. How smart is Douglas Wolk? I imagine that every single traced down origin of James Brown's love and theft for the session just came from the top of his noggin, tho I'm sure his extreme modesty would not allow me to find him so effortlessly brilliant. Believe the hype.
-Just finished my Feist review. C'mon, Feist? Like that PJ bassline, the Bee Gee's cover, but c'mon - Feist. When will Big Black Jr. fall down from the sky to make for a new sound in rock? Did I just write that - not gender, but lack of bullshit, fay naivete. I'm sick of cute.
-Went to see a James Tenney piece at the Whitney at Altria - one of these 'feel free to move around the venue during the performance' pieces, called "For piano and..." - sections of the ensemble were all around, a quartet here, brass there, percussion, Jenny Lin at the piano. It was a low tone cluster, high overtone meditation - La Monte Young feeling but with some Western harmony thrown in, moving shiftless but disernable. I actually conquered my teeming brain and heard through it to extreme spatial separation, like seeing every feather in a headdress laid side by side, then bound together in order. A lot of times I feel like concert experiences like this become that - Cagian lessons in hearing. Is personal transendance the point, though - is tuning in for a moment anything more than that? I dunno, but I was happy to have done it.
-speaking of 'getting it' i have finally wandered through my boredom with Smog and decided that Rock Bottom Riser, off the new record, is my melancholic jam of the moment. Bill C. 12th album in 13 years. what else have i missed?
waiting for a factory girl
Took a weekend off and hung out with my dad in Allentown - on Friday we visited the Martin guitar factory, which was a model of 19th century craftspersonship in a 21st century setting. Total Mr. Rodgers style - one guitar travelling through maybe 100 hands, each person adding one small bend to the body, frets to the neck, a set of tuning knobs, mother of pearl inlay, strings, polish.
Yes, they did have a section of the factory devoted to dudes who just tried out the instruments - lick-o-rama central.
Most beautiful to see stacks and stacks of the guitar sides without bodies, like cookie cutters stacked, only this hollow is the form. Also, to see hundreds of strings sitting in pots like flowers, a man pulling one from each to sit and string each guitar, one by one.
The fetishization of the object, it turns out, starts long before it sits in the hands of some Clapton - branding and quality contrl demands that even a completely finished guitar be sawed in half and its serial number restarted in the plant, for even the slightest cosmetic imperfection. Workers carry the expensive ones - up to 100,000 each - by hand from station to station. Then, at the end, their buffing robot shines each guitar until you can see your reflection - a weird blend of uptight, old world care and bizarre, in-house compu-tech. The guy who gave us the tour was the shop manager - my age, stiff jelled hair, kept referring to 'my guys on the floor' - a jealous pang to be worried about repetitive stress on the body, not the ears.
Pictures of John Lennon were many but no music played - it's a factory. Martin pays for employees to take guitar lessons. They will send a free guitar to any employee's family member serving in Iraq. Tiny American flags were wedged around, and I guess we were the parade, a daily 1pm tour for a factory in the middle of Nazareth, PA, hours 6am to 2pm. The second most popular image, after Lennon, was of Nascar - although the speedway in town just closed leaving fans far from the next nearest Nascar hub in Delaware.
Martin's employees were grandmas, old men with risque forearm tattoos, young women wearing safety goggles, moms with little league baseball card pix of their kids up on the board behind their station - a weird vision of what would I think be called the ideal small town working-class American job in a sort of wonderful small American Town.
5.11.2005
start making sense
****School's out for the summer!****
Actually I have one more paper to do, but then...Then I'll start working on my master's interviews. I'm on the lookout for any American pop (i.e. not art music or umm..classical) musicians who have dabbled or completed a formal education in visual art. If you are one of those people, or know some of those people, or know of some of those people - EMAIL ME: pinkgerl@yahoo.com
IN OTHER NEWS
Ann Powers is leaving EMP for Blender. This is a good thing, me thinks. Not for EMP, but for Ann. And, yes, Blender - as we've all come to admit, the best major market music magazine in America.
Want to break into producing? Make Beyonce's next world music crossover track with a little help from PBS. And children.
This is odd, maybe annoying, but you know - there was a time in all of our lives when we just loved calling random phone numbers, and now it's an art project:
call 1-800-555-8965
dev.id 10815
pin 2289
Am spinning right now:
The Erica Mather Trio - The Millennium Song Cycle -jazz concept album following through a year in progress. Ms. Mather, my dear friend, is going to teach me a little jazz piano this summer in trade for a sorta crash course on music journalism
The Nein - Another post-Walkman/Spoon kinda weird production-oriented rock record actually using samples as song-structure in a way that breaks down the dance rock blah aspect. Good.
Actually I have one more paper to do, but then...Then I'll start working on my master's interviews. I'm on the lookout for any American pop (i.e. not art music or umm..classical) musicians who have dabbled or completed a formal education in visual art. If you are one of those people, or know some of those people, or know of some of those people - EMAIL ME: pinkgerl@yahoo.com
IN OTHER NEWS
Ann Powers is leaving EMP for Blender. This is a good thing, me thinks. Not for EMP, but for Ann. And, yes, Blender - as we've all come to admit, the best major market music magazine in America.
Want to break into producing? Make Beyonce's next world music crossover track with a little help from PBS. And children.
This is odd, maybe annoying, but you know - there was a time in all of our lives when we just loved calling random phone numbers, and now it's an art project:
call 1-800-555-8965
dev.id 10815
pin 2289
Am spinning right now:
The Erica Mather Trio - The Millennium Song Cycle -jazz concept album following through a year in progress. Ms. Mather, my dear friend, is going to teach me a little jazz piano this summer in trade for a sorta crash course on music journalism
The Nein - Another post-Walkman/Spoon kinda weird production-oriented rock record actually using samples as song-structure in a way that breaks down the dance rock blah aspect. Good.
5.04.2005
regret
Greetings from the windy city,
Just spent the most harrowing 12 hours chasing the New Order hype machine, yes, t.v. land, a sad and strange brush with what a post-interview bar patron said, 'must be really cool, like that...that....movie, i can't reme.." No. It's not like that, I explain. I'm a woman, they don't let girls on the Sweetwater bus for work purposes, I mean, writing work. "oh ya, you must get a whole lot of 'how bad do you want this story'" Ha ha ha, ya. No.
Then I got to have the guilt and anxiety of watching not one but two women get pickpocketed on the blue line train. Walking up the stairs on the transfer, just sort of thinking 'he's way too close to that woman, does he know her' and my eyes, which I normally think move quickly and catch the slightest thing, just bauble down to his hands, reaching into her bag. I stayed silent until the immediate danger of his presence cleared - excuse me miss, that man went through your bag.
The other woman felt the hand in her bag, like I sometimes feel when I'm at shows, only to realize I'm being bumped or having beer poured on me or something, and she shouted and chased him. No one on the platform did a thing. No one. There must have been fourty people there. I was so rattled I did the cell phone clutched in hand girlie girl thing the whole way home, then called excellent friend Caryn to be my virtual bodyguard on the walk back to the super secret new Stop Smiling offices.
And here I was thinking about the delicate balance between the obtuse and the vapid as relates to Sumner's lyrics, when some 'real shit' happened, some Concrete Jungle, some hip hop, political punk narrative shit - and had that flash of "first they came for the Jews". But we talk about this in this horrible abstract way sometimes in ethnoworld, that no fieldwork is worth your life, that some stories are too dangerous - likewise, the balance between self-preservation and moral obligation to help someone in need is one that seems obvious in the abstract, but so much different when you're standing alone in a strange city half-paralysed that all these BIG DUDES aren't doing a thing - like, do they know better? Anyway, my moment of weakness - causing even more introspection on human's need for false enticements to danger - the black hole of Joy Division rendered as caracature for mass spectacle, the hrm hrm dead end of some dark myth that serves a good number of people without having to know the real horror of that man's final hours. I read 200 pages of press on them before doing this interview, some really horrible stuff, and this was the worst. "Maybe he killed himself because there was nothing on the telly."
And maybe there was a reason he put on "The Idiot".
Just spent the most harrowing 12 hours chasing the New Order hype machine, yes, t.v. land, a sad and strange brush with what a post-interview bar patron said, 'must be really cool, like that...that....movie, i can't reme.." No. It's not like that, I explain. I'm a woman, they don't let girls on the Sweetwater bus for work purposes, I mean, writing work. "oh ya, you must get a whole lot of 'how bad do you want this story'" Ha ha ha, ya. No.
Then I got to have the guilt and anxiety of watching not one but two women get pickpocketed on the blue line train. Walking up the stairs on the transfer, just sort of thinking 'he's way too close to that woman, does he know her' and my eyes, which I normally think move quickly and catch the slightest thing, just bauble down to his hands, reaching into her bag. I stayed silent until the immediate danger of his presence cleared - excuse me miss, that man went through your bag.
The other woman felt the hand in her bag, like I sometimes feel when I'm at shows, only to realize I'm being bumped or having beer poured on me or something, and she shouted and chased him. No one on the platform did a thing. No one. There must have been fourty people there. I was so rattled I did the cell phone clutched in hand girlie girl thing the whole way home, then called excellent friend Caryn to be my virtual bodyguard on the walk back to the super secret new Stop Smiling offices.
And here I was thinking about the delicate balance between the obtuse and the vapid as relates to Sumner's lyrics, when some 'real shit' happened, some Concrete Jungle, some hip hop, political punk narrative shit - and had that flash of "first they came for the Jews". But we talk about this in this horrible abstract way sometimes in ethnoworld, that no fieldwork is worth your life, that some stories are too dangerous - likewise, the balance between self-preservation and moral obligation to help someone in need is one that seems obvious in the abstract, but so much different when you're standing alone in a strange city half-paralysed that all these BIG DUDES aren't doing a thing - like, do they know better? Anyway, my moment of weakness - causing even more introspection on human's need for false enticements to danger - the black hole of Joy Division rendered as caracature for mass spectacle, the hrm hrm dead end of some dark myth that serves a good number of people without having to know the real horror of that man's final hours. I read 200 pages of press on them before doing this interview, some really horrible stuff, and this was the worst. "Maybe he killed himself because there was nothing on the telly."
And maybe there was a reason he put on "The Idiot".
5.01.2005
cheerleading and disco
Just got an email that Daphne Brooks' Jeff Buckley's Grace 33 1/3 book is out this week. Go buy it - summer is in their air! I'm more of a Tim Buckley gal myself, but I'll give it a spin cause Daphne the first is an amazing mind and can convince me of anything. Insert joke about river walk here.
On a related Girl Group cheerleading note: My friend and editor Kerri Mason is going to be the new dance music columnist for Billboard Magazine. She is the first ever woman in this position, one that she will fill, no doubt, amazingly. I know a couple of equally awesome folks who applied for the job but I have to say that it's really amazing and great for a her, and I'm proud and excited.
In my New Order overload I watched this video for the song Confusion, which was produced by Arthur Baker and so obviously in worship of the early 80s NYC dance/hip hop scene. Weird with all recent hype around that era to think of its diffusion into the larger worldwide arts culture, not that duh, disco and hip hop weren't the most important culture exports of the late 70s and early 80s. I wonder what else would fit in that catagory? Spandex? Cell phones? People around the world might like cell phones even more than they liked disco.
Speaking of disco, I might go catch another look at the EMP disco exhibit that Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts, which is only up until May 15. Do it!
On a related Girl Group cheerleading note: My friend and editor Kerri Mason is going to be the new dance music columnist for Billboard Magazine. She is the first ever woman in this position, one that she will fill, no doubt, amazingly. I know a couple of equally awesome folks who applied for the job but I have to say that it's really amazing and great for a her, and I'm proud and excited.
In my New Order overload I watched this video for the song Confusion, which was produced by Arthur Baker and so obviously in worship of the early 80s NYC dance/hip hop scene. Weird with all recent hype around that era to think of its diffusion into the larger worldwide arts culture, not that duh, disco and hip hop weren't the most important culture exports of the late 70s and early 80s. I wonder what else would fit in that catagory? Spandex? Cell phones? People around the world might like cell phones even more than they liked disco.
Speaking of disco, I might go catch another look at the EMP disco exhibit that Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts, which is only up until May 15. Do it!
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