If you had met me in the spring of 1996, and then the following fall, you would have done a double-take. In fact, a few people did. In between my sophomore and junior year of college, I had ditched my frightening tortoise-shell androgynous Birth Control Glasses and gotten contact lenses. I'd also bought some new clothes and cut my hair. Gone were the eye-disturbing blood-red-on-blood-red ensembles, the greasy mushroom fro, the general sense of "I don't know who the fuck I am, but you're going to see me, dammit."
I'd also started a strange kind of internet flirtation with a girl who lived in Kentucky, who shall remain nameless so as not to injure her reputation for ever getting herself involved with the likes of me. Both of these have a connection with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in general and Acme in particular.
Back in December of 1999, when I still though The City Paper was worth reading, I came across one of the inescapable Best of the Nineties records, which is to say, three of them (because our authoritative critical voice must have a multiplicty of opinion!). And one of them had Orange somewhere right in the middle.
I already had Acme, and liked it, and had heard from the former internet semi-girlfriend who got me into them (more on that later), that their earlier stuff was better. I was still too young to roll my eyes at said cliche, so I schlepped into Center City Philadelphia on the train, and picked up this silver-leafed disc at the HMV on 15th and Walnut.
I've made it this far without taking note of anybody's Top Ten of 2010 Lists. It's not that I find such exercises completely useless; it behooves to take stock of what has passed and what can be considered favorable and unfavorable. I just find them over-used: a cheap device to garner attention and controversey (which is to say, more attention).
Filter's Top 10, however, spares us no exhaustion. Not only do we get the Official Magazine Top 10, but the Top Reviewed Albums, the Publishers', Editor-in-Chief's, Associate Editor's, Layout Designer's, writing staff's and Guy Who Sleeps on Our Couch's individual Top Tens. By the time you're done, LCD Soundsystem would have implanted itself as a self-regenerating meme in your mindhead.
This totally changes my mind about irony.
Anyway, I thought I disliked Top Ten's because they were thoughtless and non-authorial, but it turns out I liked them even less when they're detailed and transparent. Maybe I only like the funny kinds. Let me know if you see any.
...I mean, it's 2011, and the hip still won't miss the opportunity to bash them, even for things they had nothing to do with.
According to Germany's Der Spiegel newspaper, little Walter Eikrem was walking home from school in his hometown of Rakkestad when all of a sudden he found himself on the same path as a pack of wolves.
Instead of crying wolf and running away, Walter did what seemed to be the only logical thing to him: he pulled out his cell phone, took the ear buds out of it and turned Creed's "Overcome" up full blast while screaming and waving his arms.
And the wolf ran away. GET IT LOL C WUT I DID THR?
Then I remember how skull-scrapingly bad Creed's music is, and I'm more or less fine with it.
I liked the first two editions of Pitchfork's Why We Fight, but I've missed every one since. I've read #3 and #4 just now, and while I thought #4 was an okay walk through the perils of MIA's playing with politics, I got three quarters of the way down #3 and was suddenly, un-utterably bored with the entire enterprise:
This idea of knowingness, though-- our relationship with it can get complicated. Right now, one of the internet's most successful bastions of knowingness is a blog called Hipster Runoff, a performance that's almost nothing but knowing: It shrugs, it takes an arch, pseudo-scientific tone, it puts every other word in scare quotes. Here you go, it seems to say: Here is your weird market of hipness and cool. The end. You can take it as withering satire, if you want to, because its skewers are dead on target. Of course, if its pseudonymous author really thought the market of cool were that pointless and vacuous, why spend so much time thinking about it-- why know it well enough to be savvy? It's not so much a satire as a whole performance of knowingness. And even if I don't often have the stomach for it, I can't pretend the performance isn't an immaculate one: it's knowingness raised to the level of poetry, free of the burden of "intent" or sincerity or any point beyond what the reader reflects out of it. It goes beyond "the author is dead" and turns the author into some kind of zombie.
When I was in college, REM had a rather large hit song with the line "You said that irony was the shackle of youth." At the time, I disagreed, saying that irony was the weapon of youth. We were both right, I suppose, but I don't care to examine the matter much further than that, because Irony, capital "I", is not that interesting. It's not really a thing, it's an act, a choice. That's why an analysis or discussion of Irony will always feel overblown. And it's why Family Guy will always be less than its competitors.
I say that because the article namedrops The Simpsons. But The Simpsons, however arch it seemed, always leavened its snark with a sincere heart. The show actually cared about its characters; even, or especially Homer. Homer Simpson serves the show as the butt of most of the jokes, but if something really really bad happened to him, fans would be heartbroken. Because Homer is not really a bad guy, just flawed and limited, like all of us are.
Family Guy, on the other hand, doesn't really care all that much. About anything. The show's evolved from an even arch-er version of The Simpsons to an endless On the Road movie with a drunken hipster dog and a gay baby standing in for Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. It's breezy and stupid and fully aware of its breeziness and stupidity, and works them like Stevedores for every laugh. At the root of every Family Guy gag is the thought, "This is so completely retarded that I have no choice but to laugh."
And while such cheap absurdity is a well that may never run dry, it's a good distance away from the archness and intellect of The Simpsons, and light-years away from its great rival South Park. Trey Parker and Matt Stone's show is a lot of things, but almost never ironic. Rather, it's bone-cuttingly satiric, to the point of being mad-dog mean:
The humor here comes from saying the unsayable, and while that sounds knowing, it's not irony, because it's meant with deadly earnestness.
My point is that irony is not worth the effort of hashing out, because it's by no means as central to our cultural narratives as people who wallow in it, or fuss about it, think it is. There's a time when we all love it, and think ourselves superior for being aware of it. It passes.
I don't care about Robert Pollard, or Guided By Voices, or any of that. I just don't. It's Stuff I've Heard of But Never Listened To. And I'm sure that his new disc, Space City Kicks, unleashes just as much awesomeness as Under the Radar says. I like that title so much, in fact, that I'm willing to listen to some samples on iTunes. But the cover...
Dude...
Why is he standing there like that? Is this some kind of kung fu position? And why isn't there anything spacey or city-y, or even kick-y (unless Robert refers to his badass two-tone shoes as "kicks" as the kids do these days)?
I mean, it's possible that some dippy photographer came up with this, and the record label went with it sans Pollard's approval, but this is out on Pollard's own label, so that answer's stupid. No, he thinks this picture is cool, from the understated tiny red heart on the king's-blue shirt to the guitar just hanging out next to the whatever-white building in the vacant lot down the street from the Bob Evans. Robert Pollard this the whole thing, including the "punch me in the jimmy! Do it HARD!" stance, is just too ineffable to be effed.
Look, Dave Grohl has enough grandfathered indie cred that he could play on a Justin Bieber record and still be cool. And as long as he whips out those drumsticks whenever Josh Homme demands it of him, he can do whatever the hell else he wants to pay the bills. And hell, the're one or two Foo songs I like. "Monkey Wrench" comes to mind.
But I'm never going to be excited by a Foo Fighters record. The Foo Fighters were the methadone we all needed to get over Nirvana's downfall. That's all. Sorry.
At least, going by this meandering piece in the Village Voice, which claims that Kanye West and James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem won "one for the douchebags," whatever that might mean.
Their fantastic lives begot fantastic albums. MBDTF was a delirium of influence, a recombination of musical DNA as varied as gothic East Coast rap classicism, '70s prog rock, and winsome '90s electronic music. In doing so, West paid maximalist homage to his own best work: the sped-up soul sampling of his early productions, the glossy thump of Graduation, the ornate orchestration of Late Registration, the sad robot pulse of 808s and Heartbreak. And he rapped better, too—a necessity on an album that featured historically grand competition, from a bloodthirsty Nicki Minaj to Raekwon to Jay-Z himself (twice!), a hip-hop fantasy camp basically unparalleled, in part because any other artist would've been afraid to try. Murphy, for his part, boiled down a decade of sarcasm and ironic dance-floor excess into a plainspoken kiss-off to the career that had cost him everything external to the band he found himself trapped in.
So I guess that means...we like them? We don't like them? They're douchebags? What the hell does that even mean anymore? Did we ever know? The word "douche" suggests feminine hygiene, or other matter gynecological, and George Carlin testified to its use to insult women only, at least among NY Italians of the 1950's to 1970's. But by some kind of post-modern inversion, it's come to be applied as an all-purpose insult against hyper-masculine bro-types. Joel McHale can't get through a bit about Tool Academy without using it.
“Douchebag” is perhaps the most overused slang in the parlance of the under-50 set. It’s so damn effective, and I love nothing more than to latch onto slang that’s either showing its expiration date or recently expired altogether.
That was in 2008. So now that it's ubiquity is secure, and it has passed from meaning whatever it meant to "something not desirable," I'm going to quietly retire "douchebag," and it's little bro, "d-bag" from my parlance. You may consider this official:
Do I find the idea of listening to the Decemberists boring because band names that refer to long-dead Russian political movements are just too precious to be taken serously, or because I'm afraid I'll start confusing them with the Arcade Fire?
I first reviewed this CD on the old version of this blog, The Notion, back in 2003, when everyone had discovered that rock n' roll was not, in fact dead. I had some notion in my head of a New Rock Quadrifecta of the Strokes, White Stripes, Hives, and Vines. I made a generalized statement about Australian bands not bothering too much about their appearance:
Unlike the The Strokes' rich-boy bum ensembles, the Hives' neo-mod uniforms and the White Stripes' peppermint chic, The Vines were the only band of the origonal "new rock" quadrifecta that didn't have a ready-made look (which may be why they've slipped off the radar screens). Australian boys play rock n' roll, unapologetically, and they know it ain't their job to look pretty. That's for the wankers from Pommey-land and pretentious Yanks.
Blissfully ignorant of my misspelling of "original," I go on to say that Jet rocks satisfactorily, but also brings the moody piano balladry, and that this was a good thing.
Eight years on, I'm tempted to search up a Where Are They Now file, but I'm almost positive I know the answer without Googling. They enjoyed copious amounts of cocaine. Their sophomore record stiffed. They bled members back to Australia, where those who haven't sunk into drug-induced uselessness are dreaming of a comeback [Corrections to this prognostication will be welcomed].
But what of Get Born, their two-hit wonder (the second hit being "Cold Hard Bitch")? Has repeated listenings changed my original estimate? Have I discovered deep tracks which make "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" and "Look What You've Done" seem overrated? Is it time to revisit Jet?
No.
They had a song so genius-simple and bluntly-horny that it became a hit. They had another that wasn't half as good but fed into fear of the female, and it was less of a hit. They had a pretty good ballad that still sounds good today. That's it. They weren't as fantastic as their fans hoped, nor as bad as their bashers quipped.
So Hail and Farewell, Jet. For that little moment, we were all your girl.
I’m not talking about these chest-pain-causing bass-frequency fanatics, but the subtle melody-enhancing, rhythm-keeping, ass-caressing bass-guitar sounds. Put on any Marvin Gaye and turn up the low frequencies on your home or car stereos or your mp9 player (or whatever) just a tad, and I promise it’s a little bit better. And kiss your local bass player. He works a lot harder than you think.
This is all true. As I've said, I used to play the bass, and it may be an easy instrument to fake along with, but it's truly difficult to play well. And if you do, people are unlikely to notice.
Even punk bands need good bass players. My favorite punk bassis? Paul Simonon of the Clash:
When you think about it, the Beatles kind of were a cartoon. Everything about them seemed to follow a script, and the image and sensation of them grew to be larger than the four men in the band could actually fulfill. Since they broke up, they have apotheosized into cultural symbols that cannot be killed.
The more cartoony of them seem to be dying last, anyway.
If I tease Fluxblog occasionally, it's done out of love, or at least, respect. Perpetua's career is testament to the value of passion and determination, and I don't begrudge him a bit of the success he's earned.
And sometimes, we manage to oddly mirror each other. For example, his post about the Replacements expresses my thoughts entirely. I've been sort of wanting to get into them, but I haven't yet, and I'm not sure why. I think it's because they seemed redundant to me. "Ah, sure, punk rock," I'd think, "I know punk rock. What's that you say? Then they 'matured'?"
But now I'm more okay with letting bits of 80's rock past my nose, so I think I'll give them a fair hearing. Suggestions as to Replacements songs/albums to start with will be welcome.
In the time since the Kills released their 2008 album Midnight Boom, the oozing blues duo have been busy with other things. Alison Mosshart has been kicking it with Jack White in the Dead Weather, and Jamie Hince has been racking up low-grade tabloid fame as Kate Moss' boyfriend.
Ignoring, for the moment, the gee-golly-goshers aspect of being told that musicians do other things when not in the studio or on tour, why in the name of all things holy am I supposed to give a snowball in hell about who James Hince has been fornicating with? Are they really trying to coat this trivia with some kind of lovers-reunited meme?
While I've steadily lost interest in Gorillaz over the years (if there's anything less self aware than a rock/hip-hop supergroup, the most carrion-like of music acts, whining about trash, I haven't percieved it), and probably won't buy The Fall whenever it comes out, I am intrigued by the fact that Albarn recorded it on his iPad while touring. If an iPad can do that, then who needs a studio?
2.8 million vinyl records were sold last year, the highest since 1991. The Beatles sold the most, but Arcade Fire and Black Keys did respectable sales.
I've bought this CD twice. The first time it was a stocking-stuffer/sub-gift for my brother. He listened to it once or twice and then gave it back to me. I sold it to Record and Tape Traders with a pile of other stuff I didn't listen to, and bought something hipper instead. Because, Hendrix was such a cliche, man! The inevitable #1 on lists of rock guitarists made by people who can't think for themselves! The Sheeple!
The second time it was homework for the first and only gig I've ever played, an event sponsored by the College of Southern Maryland Guitar Club at a coffee shop. I never went to CSM; I ran into the director at a production of Beauty and the Beast that wifey was involved in. He saw me in my Miles Davis T-shirt and chatted me up, found out I played bass, and asked me to come jam. So for an evening I was Noel Redding to a trio of honkeys who all wanted to be Hendrix and were way better musicians than I've ever been (the only black member of our impromptu group was the drummer, in a neat inversion of the racial makeup of the Jimi Hendrix Experience).
I do 90% of my CD-listening in the car. Radio is lame, and I buy music for a reason. So I'm that guy: constantly switching out the CD's in my car so I can listen to new stuff. If a CD stays in my car longer than a couple of weeks, I'm very busy.
And that's a strike against Ilad, because this CD doesn't play in my car very well. It's one of a handful that I call "skippers". If I drive over a pothole, it skips. If I drive over a manhole cover, it skips. If I drive over a rise in the earth higher than four inches, it skips. So the most consistent sound I get from The Spoon is stereo whirr.
Sure, I could listen to it on my stereo at home. But that's where I listen to vinyl. Besides, my stereo has taken to turning itself on in the morning and blaring Ilad from the basement, so I feel as though I've gotten a good exposure to it.
What it sounds like is a pleasant, tepid soup of jazzy non-jazz. I don't know if jazz musicians enjoy themselves far more than anyone listening to them, because I like jazz, but I do kinda get that feeling from this record. Like there's some kind of deeper sophistication that the band itself is totally digging, but which is utterly lost to me. I hear guitars, and drums, and bass, and rythmic switches that more or less fail to arouse anything in me. I'm not getting it, and I don't care.
