NO Music, NO Life...

Sure, we're kinda crap at distribution, what with four albums (and counting) collecting dust, and we may be temporarily splintered across continents, but we're TCB on the A/V front.

Burning Down the House

Well, it's like three in the morning here, so I ain't got time to comment on this right now, but it's worth bringing to your attention expediently so we can all have a nice little chat about 3rd-degree burns on nether* regions in the near future.

By the way, did you notice that Osaka police are calling this a suicide attempt? Talk about going out in a blaze of glory. Surely any effort to off yourself that includes your pants around your ankles is just one o' them Cries For Help. Of course, considering the circumstances, yeah, this guy obviously had nothing going for him.

Anyway, this is a good excuse to post a li'l video hat-tip to Jodi Dean, but foregoing my original selection of "Life During Wartime", this seems like a more a propos selection...



(*) - Did I mention I'm going to Amsterdam this weekend? It's gonna be a hot time... in the ol' town too-nite...

Out! Of! Step!

Okay, as much as I dug Jem Cohen's Fugazi documentary, its "portrait-gallery" framing of the band as Instruments of the People dragged it perceptibly close to hagiography. In the decade since, between American Hardcore and endless Glenn E. Friedman pictorial tributes, harDCore had become as historicised as possible... until now.


Some unbelievably bad geek-rapper from Milwaukee told me about this back in June. Forgive my skepticism, but I didn't think (at the time) I could take a 98lb. punching-bag who made his stage entrance in a Hulk Hogan crop-top to the tune of Cheap Trick's "Surrender" at his word. Evidently I was wrong.

Say it with me now: I can't keep up, I can't keep up, I can't keep up...

They're American planes...

Out of the Mouths of Boors

A great debt is owed to perennial shot-caller J-Hop for helping disseminate this bit of brilliant digital detritus:



Like his brother-in-knuckle-scraping-arms Liam Gallagher, Diamond Dave operates as a William of Ocham for the jet(trash)-set: he's a perpetual-motion machine of flapping gums so incapable of complex thought that he's able only to express the elemental truth; everything else, being more complicated, could only cause him confusion. (Perhaps that's why DLR's hair looks so fried: he blew a synapse discussing mechanical royalties with Mo Ostin?)

No, I'm not taking the piss. I defy you to find a single false statement issued from his shit-eating grin. Let's pick it apart, shall we?

Van Halen music, heavy metal music, any kind of rock music, is what I like to call "high-velocity folk music."

Consider (as we've done before) that, essentially, folk music is anecdotal narrative or reductive personal expression wrapped around simple, uncluttered chord structures that resonates upon some universal truth. Well, isn't that precisely what Van Halen in their prime produced? Who hasn't jumped, run with the devil, been hot for teacher, or, uh, fallen under the control of Manuel Noriega?

Taken as a general statement, it's true that heavy metal fulfilled the same role that campfire acoustic singalongs did a hundred years prior. Certainly, upon closer examination of niche subgenres, not many people would say the songs of Cannibal Corpse, Gorgoroth, or Dragonforce speak directly to/of them. But across the broader sweep of metal - from "Paranoid" to "Aces of Spades", from "Welcome To the Jungle" to "Midlife Crisis" - it's easy enough to find some empathetic resonance therein.

I look at heavy metal music - Van Halen's brand, rather, of heavy metal music - as a combination of religion and hockey.

Again, dead on. Consider the intricate weave of metaphysical devotion and gaudy materialist ceremony, the relation to a higher spirit through annointed spokesmen (yes, spokesmen), the large celebratory gatherings of the faithful to behave in manners unbecoming of their quotidian reality - and then consider the presence of large, sweaty, swearing men with an emphasis on indelicate, antagonistic contact. Ian Svenonius has written far more exhaustively on the parallels between rock and religion, but it bears remembering that sports occupy the same place in a great many people's lives.

We had to get into a band because we are this way... I have successfully turned "monkey hour" into a career.

A band as a synergistic culmination of personalities; to play music as a means of personal psychic reconstitution; making art as an end unto itself as opposed to a single facet of some larger marketing campaign for one's career as a public persona... how bloody tragic is it that these now seem like quaint idealisms, delusional romantic fantasies? That it should be expressed so succinctly by David Lee Roth of all people is, as they say, a head-fuck.

Meanwhile, his "monkey hour" anecdote is a perfect example of precisely why I regard the psychiatric industry as fascistic and dehumanising.

Style is not to be confused with Class. A Mercedes Benz is Class, because it represents money. However, chili dogs have absolutely no Class, but a great deal of Style. Punk rock, new wave, whatever you have, reggae, rastafari haircuts, what-have-you, are all different kinds of Styles. None of them, however, have any Class - I got class.

Ladies and gentlemen, Professor Roth's 15-second summation of the ontology of capital! Assuming it's true that chili dogs got mad style, Style would be the more desirable of the two characteristics: Style implies a kind of substantive polysensual engagement, an experience that diversifies (or even gives body to) reality's symbolic framework. Class, on the other hand, is symbolic of a single substantive quality: economic power. For those who would question Roth's claim to Class in view of his squalid apartment, recall his analogy between music religion; consider the decidedly unglamorous daily lifestyle of the average priest, contrasted with the elaborate pomp & circumstance of his rituals before his flock. There exists the same degree of difference between Roth's life on and off the road.

There's no question, DLR does have Class, in spite of the frat-house squalor of his apartment: he was (and is again) the face & voice of a band that has sold over 80 million albums to date - a distinction shared by only about a hundred other musical artists in history. Among the many bands that can't match Van Halen's account balance is, ironically, the act that best signifies the detached superficiality and bland "good taste" of Class in the 1980s: Roxy Music. Consider that, as Roth was giving this interview, Roxy Music were recording Avalon, the summa of vapid yuppie sumptuousness. I wonder if it frustrated Bryan Ferry that, after his studious & painstaking adoption of all the hollow affectations of wealth & privilege, that he was lumped into the same club as this dandelion-haired yahoo. Ferry may have sported all the appropriate symbols, but Roth had the substance.

I Will Possess Your Soul

I heard it in a shop two days ago, then as a ringtone this morning, and now I've had the bloody Death Cab For Cutie single stuck in my head all day. I thought, perhaps, perusing the video might fish out the earworm; it did, but now I'm even angrier than I was before. It's bad enough to be haunted by what sounds like Coldplay's Starbucks-ready rendition (read: neutering) of "Death Valley '69" with a full five-minute preamble of deathly undynamic M.O.R. motorik. But fear not, good friends, because not only does the video not cut the anodyne intro, but it slaps atop it a montage of some pallid mannequin being manifestly unmoved by great scenery around the globe.

Is this Death Cab's tribute to jetlag-addled noninteractive vacationing in the Scarlett Johannsen vein? More indie Orientalism posing as pancultural, One World group hug? Or conversely, an anti-Othering attempt to flatten the globe by demonstrating how to be bored anywhere? A music clip that can be cynically edited into a 30-second commercial that appeals to local narcissism worldwide to make fat mad stacks for Atlantic Records? Who cares?

A better question: why do I care about such milquetoast post-emo pop when it has no function in my life?

Short answer: I don't.

Long answer: I care that it's occupied my consciousness for the better part of a day because I couldn't escape it in the public sphere. I care because it horrifies me to think that every single square inch or second of media that I absorb has been bought, paid for, done as a favour, scratched someone's back, and/or is a single battle in a larger war to possess me and my wallet. There is no such thing as a coincidence, and nothing is so iconoclastic or esoteric it can't be commodified. Lest I be accused of being some music industry incarnation of A Scanner Darkly's Barris, here it is straight from the horse's mouth: these whore-clown huns of universal pillage are out to get you. In a civilization where Starbucks (again) sells a selection of Sonic Youth favourites, it's not merely a matter of having test-marketed tripe shoved down our throats by the Big Four. I'd be no happier if I heard Rick Froberg hollering at me in the frozen food section.

White People Dancing

Between my recent reintroduction to Arthur Brown and this week's revision of OMD over at Pitchfork, I've spent the past few jetlag-addled days marveling over the physics-defying gyrations of which the human body is capable. Now, I believe in a binary ultimatum - you either make music, or you move to it - and live by the former. That, however, does not mean that I don't appreciate some fancy footwork as much as the next fellow. And these days, everyone's getting a little footloose, since Dave Chappelle so guilelessly made the case that, yes, folks that aren't black can dance. (Not to mention the supposed & apparent death of irony in indie-rock which had stilted so many students' confidence on the dance floor.) True, there remain certain earmarks for objectively "good" dancing (e.g. grace, balance, pacing) but I've always admired those who throw caution, dignity, and themselves to the wind. It just so happens that many such characters are, in fact, white. Blame it on physiology: they just ain't got the hips to crump properly.

Now, there are certain qualifiers and caveat I must offer upfront. For starters, as much as I'm hypnotized by the beserker Dervish whirls perfected by the Dillinger Escape Plan, it's become so ubiquitous as to be uninteresting. Also, I acknowledge that, despite the post title White People Dancing, two Japanese made it onto the list. This is because if you want people who make white folks look like they've got five-hundred-pounds-per-square-inch of pure funk in their feet, look at the Japanese. Seriously, even their hip-hop dancing mysteriously prioritizes the upper body above the lower. As for latino Omar Rodriguez-Lopez' presence... well, who do you think listens to the Mars Volta? White people!

Finally, yes, a number of these videos are reposts, and I don't give a crap. I'm operating on a time zone eight-thousand miles west of my current location, so sue me if I'm not up to full speed.

1. Guy Picciotto of Fugazi

With all the power of a pentecostal and the effete hip-swivelling of a Meredith Monk fan.

2. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez of (then) At the Drive-In

Certainly, Cedric Bixler-Zavala has some mighty fancy moves of his own, but as frontman he obviously focuses more on making slick, big statements, whereas Omar's muse is, uh, less filtered.

3. Arthur Brown

What makes this even more absurd is to consider how vastly influential Brown was in the long term. Go down the list: Druidically-dressed doom-obsessees, spooky facepaint, skinny & sinewy dudes throwing shirtless shitfits, etc. Even the Red Hot Chili Peppers donned flaming helmets for their stint on Lollapalooza '92.

4. Ian Curtis of Joy Division

The obvious choice for fans of spazoid indie-nerd dancing everywhere. Unfortunately, the Curtis dance craze never caught on because, in fairness, you have to be an epileptic to move like that.

5. Andy McCluskey of OMD

Ian Curtis a la Molly Ringwald.

6, Damo Suzuki of Can

Bonus points for the bellbottomed unitard on this one.

7. Ian Svenonius of (then) Nation of Ulysses

Master of a modified James Brown technique, involving periods of calm punctuated by bursts of raw soul power.

8. Nick Cave

Seen here with the almighty Birthday Party - in diapers no less! I confess this selection was made not the least because this infernal mindfuck of a video deserves to be seen more widely. But shellshocked shuck-'n'-jive that Cave busts out (and continues to, to this day) is the best smack-addled softshoe around.

9. Mark Manley in The American Astronaut

Apparently, the manner in which Manley busts loose in this scene were not choreographed: this is basically what he did during his audition, and who wouldn't put a man with moves like that in a movie?

10. This chick

Actually, after watching this again, she's unarguably number one. And my god, imagine what's she's like in the sack. Kids, don't do drugs!

Show & Tell

Show



I'd always been dimly aware of Arthur Brown as some lanky cat in facepaint that my parents digged (yes, digged, not dug, squares), but a little quality time spent with his records last week has reawakened me to this man's unmitigated genius. Try that 4-octave range on for size, kiddo! And have you ever seen such dancing? Let it be writ in the sky in magnesium flares: Arthur Brown set the precedent.



This particular video also features drum-syncing that makes the "Sweater Song" look spot-on. As the man says... Terrific!

Tell

Friends, transients, countrymen and -women... lend me your ears and wallets. As of right now, my new full-length is on the block over at Spoilt Victorian Child Records, and I would deeply appreciate your patronage. Does that sound desperate? Well, guess what, I ain't held a full-time job in three years and can't get a work permit where I'm domiciled, so yes, I'm begging. Wait, redact that - I'm busking. (You would be, after all, getting something in return.)

But hell, y'know what? The album's good enough that it can back up whatever braggadocio I throw out. So fuck begging; I'm doing you a favour by letting you know you can buy Exit Strategy right here. Who wouldn't want something that stitches together Wall of VooDoo, Ministry, and the Fall?

Idiot Video Idiom

Allow me to canter about in the saddle of my ex-pat high horse for a bit, ladies & gentlemen. While I'll admit to frequently knowing little about a country before moving there beyond its music, I'm not naive enough to believe that, say, Japan was going to be a land of purely iconoclastic sonic experimentation. I knew that Zeni Geva and Koenjihyakkei would be the exception, not the rule. That being said, I could also rest assured that, by virtue of how much of this manic post-hardcore skronk had drifted across the Pacific, there was enough of a scene/movement/stylistic consensus/Insert Loathesome Buzzword Here that I would remain engaged.

And so it was. Similarly, I thought that Germany's rich history of convention-smashing rock would guarantee a certain ratio of avant-garde mindfuck within its contemporary music. After all, any culture that birthed the major works of Stockhausen, Can, Kraftwerk, and Einstürzende Neubauten within a twenty-five year period would surely have something to offer beyond Rammstein or this guy.

Thus, I came to Deutscheland with grainy dreams of recapturing the spirit of '72, as embodied by the following list of boundary-breaking creations from that year:

Pop


Rock


Dance


Experimental


Some Head-Nod Shit


And it is with a blend of trepidation and disgust that I report that, eight months into my research, contemporary German music doesn't have anything to offer beyond Rammstein and that Technoviking guy. To wit, I present Exhibit 2008:

Pop


Rock


Dance


Experimental


Some Head-Nod Shit


So this is what happens when there is One World, when a country is reunified under the aegis of a single pancultural (rather, acultural) philosophy. This is what happens after twenty years of market economy, ecstasy, midi sequencers, and MTV. Not that I'd advocate for the reconstruction of the Wall, the reignition of old tensions, or a return to an national existential tightrope-walk... but if I may cite a fine film about the friction from which art is sparked:

Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.