Dress in style, go hog wild

Friends, it is Lundi Gras. Any NOLA'er worth her salt would be drunk by now, knowing that by midnight tomorrow the mounties will be sweeping the Quarter of trash and kicking off the quiet end of carnival, Lent.

This morning I watched some CNN footage of the parade and flipped through the picture books, my brain filling with remorse for not finding some way to get down there. I don't believe in voting with dollars, or showing support by tourism, but this is the second year in a row I've missed Mardi Gras (been there 7 times, likely) and this year my longing is acute. This picture so totally gets it for me.

sophie's world, little johnny, dc

"A white rabbit is pulled out of a top hat. Because it is an extremely large rabbit, the trick takes many billions of years. All mortals are born at the very tip of the rabbit's fine hairs, where they are in a position to wonder at the impossibility of the trick. But as they grow older they work themselves ever deeper into the fur. And there they stay. They become so comfortable they never risk crawling up the fragile hairs again. Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. Some of them fall off, but others cling on desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug softness, stuffing themselves with delicious food and drink. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' they yell, 'we are floating in space!' But none of the people down there care. 'What a bunch of troublemakers!' they say. And keep on chatting: Would you pass the butter please? How much have our stocks risen today? What is the price of tomatoes?"

[deep in it, kids...deep]

test icicles breakup poetry

There are few things more poetic and beautiful than "exit memos." Perhaps said leaver has been daydreaming about the words for months or years, perhaps she just woke up one morning and thought "today is the day," but there's always an amazing zen calm to them. I have made up my mind, I am sharing my mind with you, but only for this last time and maybe for the only time. My favorite part is the idealism and self-love inherent in them, as if each played equal parts "girl, don't go away mad" and "i will survive." Here is a letter from Test Icicles about their decision to stop playing, because they want to do something that makes them happy an "unfortunately this isn't it." It really is that simple.

OFFICIAL STATEMENT FROM TEST ICICLES MEMBER RORY ATWELL:

Hmm, well, I not really sure how to explain this, but I gather from the comments that have been left on our myspace page over the last twenty-four hours that you all know that our 'group', band', 'project' or whateveryawannacallit is going to split up.
I've just spent the last hour writing a dissertation about what our band is/was/intended-to-be and have twisted my brain inside out trying to explain the chaos, dilemmas and confusion that has engulfed this band in the past 18 months, I'm not even sure I understand what has happened to us let alone trying to explain it to someone else.
We started this band in August 2004, our only intention was to have bit of fun, to play a few shows, cause some trouble and to split up shortly afterwards, the fact of the matter is that we played our 5millionth gig the other day after a year of multiple tours and we're sick, tired and miserable, and to put it simply, it just isn't fun anymore and hasn't been for a very long time, so we've decided it's time to find something that does make us happy because unfortunately this isn't it.

The original plan was to play a UK tour, European Tour and American Tour all in succession, finishing up with our final 5 shows around the UK in April.
I think we always suspected that at some point during this three month period of constant touring that something would go wrong and unfortunately that time came after the final show of our European tour in St. Malo last week, I'm not say who it was who snapped or in what circumstance but it had been a long time coming and I was almost relieved when it actually happened.

I'm really sorry to anyone who was looking forward to seeing us playing at that NME show or catching us on tour in the US, I hope that anyone who bought a ticket manages to get their money back without too much hassle. I would've loved to have toured the US, but in our current state of disrepair it was never going to happen and if we did try and make it happen it probably would have led to something much worse happening and the three of us disappearing somewhere near Utah never to be seen again, or something like that, so unfortunately the US tour wasn't to be. We will however play our final shows in April, that'll give us some time to sort our heads out and hopefully we can all have a week long 'fuck the Test Icicles' party together ? should be a good way to kill us off I think, bring your shovels and we'll bury Test Icicles once and for all.

Ok, well, I don't really know what else to say other than thanks to anyone who invested their time, money and effort into this band, i.e. the people who bought our records and came to see us play, I know it probably doesn't always seem like it, but we do appreciate it.
With a bit of luck the next projects that we undertake, whether they be comic books, Nobel prize winning scientific discoveries or, who knows, maybe just maybe another band, will be better than Test Icicles and you'll look back and be glad we split up ?

For the time being I'm going to grow a beard, move to the forest and work on my hillbilly-psych-out-jams and we'll see you in April, clean shaven and ready to fuck some shit up for the last time as Test Icicles!!!!

Take care of your badass-mudda-fuggin-selves, Luurve,

Raaaaaary Decihells/Aggwelt/Atwell

X X

press release wednesday: Copyright Criminals

comes from friend Kembrew, who's always got something up his sleeve:

Copyright Criminals Remix Contest extended; New Chuck D and George
Clinton samples added

Great news for all you producers, DJs, and remixers: the Copyright
Criminals Remix Contest over at ccMixter has been extended by two
weeks, ending on March 14. Additionally, new vocal samples from
influential rapper Chuck D (of Public Enemy) and pioneering funk
musician George Clinton (of Parliament-Funkadelic) have been made
available for use in the competition.

More details below:

COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS REMIX CONTEST EXTENDED UNTIL MARCH 14

New Vocal Samples from Chuck D and George Clinton Made Available for Use
San Francisco, CA, USA ? February 15, 2006

Creative Commons, along with filmmakers Kembrew McLeod and Ben Franzen,
today announced that due to overwhelmingly positive response, the
Copyright Criminals Remix Contest has been extended by two weeks,
ending on March 14. Additionally, new vocal samples from influential
rapper Chuck D (of Public Enemy) and pioneering funk musician George
Clinton (of Parliament-Funkadelic) have been made available for use in
the competition.

Winners will be chosen according to the same criteria as originally
announced; no other contest details are changed.

The Copyright Criminals Remix Contest encourages producers, DJs, and
remixers from around the world to use audio snippets from the upcoming
documentary film Copyright Criminals in new, original songs. One winner
will have his/her music featured prominently in the final edit of
Copyright Criminals. The winning track, along with 11 runners-up, will
be included on the film's companion CD. The contest is going on now at
http://ccmixter.org/.

Drawing from more than fifty interviews with prominent musicians,
artists, scholars, lawyers, and music industry representatives,
Copyright Criminals looks at the development of sound collage (also
known as sampling). The film explores the complicated impact that
copyright law has had on the creative practice of sampling and studies
the conflicting opinions artists and others have about appropriation.

Samples of dialogue by artists like De La Soul, DJ Qbert, Matmos,
Coldcut, and members of Negativland ? all taken from interviews
conducted for Copyright Criminals ? are available online at the popular
remix community ccMixter.org for use as source material to be included
in entrants' songs. Entries will be judged by McLeod, Franzen, and
author/producer Jeff Chang. Contest rules and details are available at
http://ccmixter.org.

About the judges

Kembrew McLeod is a professor at the University of Iowa and an
award-winning independent documentary filmmaker. McLeod has written
music criticism for Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, and MOJO; and has
authored two books, most recently Freedom of Expression?: Overzealous
Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity (Doubleday).

Ben Franzen is an Atlanta-based artist who owns an independent
production company called Changing Images LLC, which specializes in
video, photography, and multimedia. Franzen edits the animated TV
program Squidbillies, which appears as part of the Cartoon Network?s
Adult Swim line-up.

Jeff Chang is the author of the American Book Award-winning Can't Stop
Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. In 1993, he co-founded
and ran the influential indie hip-hop label, SoleSides (now called
Quannum Projects), helping launch the careers of DJ Shadow,
Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, and Lateef the Truth Speaker. He has helped
produce over a dozen records.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that promotes the creative
re-use of intellectual and artistic works by empowering authors and
audiences. It is sustained by the generous support of the Center for
the Public Domain, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,
the Omidyar Network, and the Hewlett Foundation. For more information,
visit CC's Web site.

circulation

here's a weird video of Nate Harrison's conceptual art dub plate of a lecture about the Amen Break. I know, I know. It's good. He 'played' this as his 'paper' on my panel at EMP last year. I like it very much. Reminds me of ethnomusicologist Steven Feld's mid-90s to the present work on sound: he makes albums as papers about music culture. Blah blah what is reading, what is the text....go....

and speaking of which, nytimes reports that "celebrity magazines were succeeding because of the "voracious appetite" for articles about "young people of ambition and accomplishment and style." in a piece about magazine circulation. Articles? And here I thought it was all about the call-in voting for whether Nicole Richie looks better in photos with straight or wavy hair. See, that's where Spin went wrong, they should have talked even MORE about Interpol's hair (and less ironically) and then they wouldn't have to move out to granola center, USA. Power to the people, your opinion matters!

put an X on the line between fear and love

new study suggests things being popular make them more popular shocking new evidence that there is no free will or taste, only sociology.

just got back from IASPM-US, which i have to tell you was a little disappointing after so many years of congregating with the EMP Pop Con folks. There were notable, passionate and original papers:

Carol Vernalis's paper on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was great as a way to think about transcribing video. Her book on music video is the same way - thoughtful breakdowns of complex, interwoven parts of sound and image.

Charles Kronengold's paper, after mine, on "changes" in gospel. harmonic changes and cycles as ways of thinking about expressing life-moments without giving a sense of disjunct to the sacred nature of the work. Interesting bc I'm always wondering in pop writing/scholarship what about the music that *isn't* trying to be transgressive, revolutionary, a form of resistance, and how to talk about that in cultural studies frameworks without sounding condescending.
m
Andy Bennett's paper and topic is of great interest to me of late: what to do about the notion of subculture as relates to age. How do sociological/cultural studies models of subculture fail as fans get older and use music for different things besides identity/sense of difference? He's a smart dude and I need to read his work.

Steve Waksman, as usual, gave an entertaining and brilliant paper on the twin-lead guitar and strong lead vocalist syndrome in metal, and how it pushes up the vocal and away the rythmn section.

Larry Hamberlin gave my favorite paper of the conference, which was about orientalism at the Chicago World's Fair. If you know me, you know why I'd be in to this to begin with, and he sat at a piano and played/sang hits from the gilded age while discussing how late 19th century America learned and imagined the other through the midway. Love it.

Gary Moulsdale gave a fascinating account of the Tom Waits/Robert Wilson colab for "the Black Rider." I am like the least interested person about Tom Waits, but Moulsdale talked so much about the layering of voices, the strength of character between Waits/Wilson and what can be considered 'authorship' in the enterprise. He also had a great, theatrical voice that made his readings of the Waits' quotes really on.

but I have to tell you that I share the journo-crit of academia a little more after this weekend. There were quite a few times I said to myself, 'this person doesn't know the music they're talking about' or somehow felt that pop music was merely being used as a common text by which to discuss other issues, and as such the music/artist was being reduced to one aspect, one gesture, one line of thought and not understood/reasoned with/dealt with in their full complexity. It is impossible of course to write and say everything about every moment of an artist's musical output, but to ignore parts of the artist/music that would collapse or change the argument is simply bad research and bad scholarship. ILM would hang said folks out to dry, and there was very little 'calling them on it' going on this weekend.

friends mistaken for coveys

clearly this needed to happen.




There is an ABSOLUTELY unforgivable funk-instrumental on the Arctic Monkeys EP, called "Chun Li's Spinning Bird Kick," and as far as I can tell the rest of the album sounds like early Strokes outtakes, with more...cockrock solos?...I mean, yeah, I'm sure it's better than the new Richard Ashcroft record, but?

Going to IASPM on Thursday to give a paper on art-school trained pop musicians and gender performance, riffing on "disruption" and the performance of failure as a way for the folks to challenge performance conventions. my tempting fate?

dc stycast on the CZ and the post-industrial

Just wanted to let y'all know that I've been stycasted over at Stylus, by the fantastic and enthusiastic Todd Burns. That's a dude who loves music and writing, and kudos to him for starting the whole site from the wilds of southern Ohio.
Anyway, the podcast is part of the Aesthetics of Pop series, which has had other Music Issue favorites like Jason Gross, Simon Reynolds and Geeta Dayal. Check out the last song by my friend Martin's band Ememvoodoopoka, who were just nominated for best Alternativní scéna (alternative album) for the Czech Angel Awards.

i don't know why i love you

friends.

two videos tonight.

the first, the stellar new output of pink, stupid girls. where shirley manson's sultry singular works through ironic intonation, pink goes for the kind of satire that almost seems calculated to win blogger hearts (who still all voted for said blondes in p&js past, present company included). a revolutionary clearing of the pop diva deadwood or just another commification of my dissent? not sure but i'm willing to stoke the flames of the argument as long as i don't have to sit too close to a fire with those girls in it, it's bound to be...toxic.

and now more bad extended metaphors with gil mantera's dream party who, i am confused but not so terribly embarrassed to say, are the only indie band from my home town currently anywhere near on the radar. dearest U.S.E., please write a great song with a vocoder chorus again so this won't have to be my consulation prize. i like the flashdance asspants moment, but who wouldn't.

true confessions

of a publicist:

In other news, "Lost" has made me rethink my life. What would skills would I be able to contribute if I were stranded on a desert island? Snarkiness? Lobbying the island newspaper to write about someone's awful coconut drum and bamboo guitar combo?

IN MY OTHER NEWS:
did a stypod with Todd from Stylus yesterday, was really fun and will likely be up next week. Chatted about the CZ, impending industrial takeover of my brain, etc.