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?

Fame in the Internet Age

I'll spare you (and them) their high school yearbook photos

Congratulations, lads, in little more than a year you've ascended from obscurity to satirista punchline!

How sadly predictable, too: as soon as I read "some bearded hipster guy," I knew where the joke was heading. Don't make it too easy for us curmudgeonly naysayers (boo! hiss!), boys.

Goin' Out West Where They Appreciate Me...

The bitch of it is this photo was taken in June, man...

As I've explained ad nauseum, being an immigrant in Japan is an exercise in Otherness. In a country so homogenous, there's no need to emphasize your foreign-ness; your very presence is enough. Living in Germany, on the other hand, that I'm not German is a constant source of surprise and (often) frustration to those I encounter. An English friend remarked, "To be fair, you do look kind of Kraut-like... and the moustache certainly doesn't help."

In fact, the moustache is one manifestation of an ongoing self-delineation. My unemployability does little to imbue a sense of stability. Moreover, the language barrier has created enough friction that aroused my ugliest knee-jerk rebelliousness. As a result, I've been revisiting my redneck roots. It began with re-watching Twin Peaks on loop over last summer. This extended into an odd preoccupation with old rockabilly and Rocky Mountain-region stoner rock records. Then came the moustache and, finally, obsessive consumption of North American Gothic cinema and sounds.

Mercifully, now I have a chance to flush this odd identity crisis out before I start carrying around a gun and drawling monosyllabically. I'm off to the chilly climes of my native Alberta, home of the new black gold rush. There are few better places than the vacuous Canadian prairies to clear one's head. Hopefully I'll come back revitalized, remembering why I'm grateful I ain't a grain farmer, and without this damned moustache.

Click on the mix title to download.

The Occidental Tourist

1. Tom Waits - "Goin' Out West" (00:00)
2. The Constantines - "Arizona" (03:18)
3. Gordon Downie - "Canada Geese" (07:31)
4. Meredith Monk and Robert Een - "Long Shadows I" (9:50)
5. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Night of the Lotus Eaters" (12:03)
6. Lungfish - "Constellations" (16:45)
7. Duane Eddy - "Rebel Walk" (18:21)
8. Tomahawk - "Narcosis" (20:32)
9. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - "Rachel" (23:01)
10. The Kills - "Kissy Kissy" (25:25)
11. The Billy Nayer Show - "Shaving" (30:26)
12. The Tragically Hip - "Locked In the Trunk of a Car" (32:10)
13. The Fall - "Guide Me Soft" (36:40)
14. The Desert Sessions feat. PJ Harvey - "Crawl Home" (38:54)
15. The Jesus Lizard - "Then Comes Dudley" (41:51)
16. Earth - "Rise To Glory" (46:10)
17. Wall of VooDoo - "Call of the West" (51:52)

The Last-Minute Temptation

I've never understood Easter - not the least because of the non-sequitorial celebratory customs. Perhaps it's just because I've never had a loved one die in some unjust or gruesome fashion, but marking & observing the murder of someone is... ghoulish creepy. Lemme put it this way: I don't trust the American gov't at all, but if I met a libertarian who marks the assassination of JFK by wearing a rifle pendant and conducting elaborate rituals involving, say, a woodchuck using marshmallows to mark the possible locations of multiple assailants, I'd have to seriously question this person's sanity.

Anyway, the Germans have an interesting twist on holidays that mark someone's death: whereas Americans celebrate with door-crashing sales, Germans close up shop... leaving me with nothing to do and half the groceries I need to survive the weekend. So I had the time to throw together this last minute MP3 mix, based upon the narrative of The Last Temptation of Christ. Click on the title to download it.

The Cross Roads: Last Temptation

1. Brian Jonestown Massacre - "Jesus" (00:00)
2. Soul Coughing - "Blue-Eyed Devil" (06:26)
3. The Harvey Girls - "Your Evil Man" (10:26)
4. The Desert Sessions - "Creosote" (13:16)
5. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Up Jumped the Devil" (15:40)
6. Cave - "Hunt Like Devil" (20:56)
7. Johnny Temple - "Evil Devil Blues" (30:42)
8. The Smiths - "Headmaster's Ritual" (33:47)
9. Sonic Youth - "Kill Yr. Idols" (38:32)
10. Soundgarden - "Jesus Christ Pose" (41:07)
11. Laddio Bolocko - "The Man Who Never Was" (46:56)
12. The Skull Defekts - "White Lights Burning Eyes" (50:51)

Catholicism: Now with double the damnation!

Emperor Palpatine's got a brand new bag!

Evidently, someone in the Vatican watched Dogma and got spooked that the Church is perceived as "a passe, archaic institution; obtuse... even hokey." Which isn't an unfounded fear: possibly the only thing more outdated than Roman Catholicism is intellectual property & copyright law.

Well, he may have that patina of organic decay for which Lon Chaney needed makeup, but who says Pope Benedict XIV ain't a baller & shot-caller, a dynamo of papal decrees? Just in time for Easter, the Vatican has found a way to induce extra guilt that Jesus died for YOU, motherfucker: seven fresh categories of deadly sin! That's right, folks, seven brand-new, cutting-edge classes of one-way tickets to the Inferno. A Vatican spokesman explained that, “While sin used to concern mostly the individual, today it has mainly a social resonance... due to the phenomenon of globalization.” The new official list of the Fourteen Deadly Sins is as follows:

Old & Busted

1. Lust
2. Gluttony
3. Greed
4. Sloth
5. Wrath
6. Envy
7. Pride

New Hotness

8. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control
9. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research
10. Drug abuse
11. Polluting the environment
12. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
13. Excessive wealth
14. Creating poverty

Perhaps this is my soulless, heathen frivolity talking, but I'm actually kind of excited about this new list, because based on this criteria, everyone is going to Hell. At least there's an admirable kind of consistency to this level of vindictive judgement that would doom itself as direly as anyone else. Think I'm kidding? Well, let's take a look at who might fit into the Church's newly-renovated Rogue's Gallery:

Bioethical violations

If not your mother, then your sister, your girlfriend, your wife... at any rate, a lot (hopefully MOST) of the women you know & love.

Morally Dubious Experiments

Yeah, bet the fundies never thought Saint Ron would've gotten behind stem cell research. (This is to say nothing of everything else the festering meatsack did to merit a permenant vacation to Hades.)

Drug Abuse

Dude, Hell is going to rock so hard if this who's gonna be there... well, except that last guy.

Polluting the Environment



Widening the Wealth Gap

Boo-yah!

Excessive Wealth

Double boo-yah!

Creating Poverty

She had it coming.

And on that note... happy easter, everybody.

The Wood Anniversary

So... there's a succinct and straightforward question I want to ask, specifically of those who thought the invasion was morally justified, strategically sound, in anyone's best interests, would pay for itself, etc.



...How's that working out for ya?

Spring Cleaning Out My Closet: Cinema of Moral Anxiety

The problem with being a pack-rat is the same that faces staunch anti-abortionists: congratulations, you've got a kid; now what the hell you gonna do with it? Part of my ongoing effort of to unburden myself of my musical backlog is occassionally to give away archival recordings online. This month, I dug deep into the darkest bowels of my closet to unearth the Cinema of Moral Anxiety EP, the beginning stages of an identity crisis committed to tape. (Click on the title to download.)

The songs were recorded between August and October of 2001, during which time I moved to Toronto, began my higher education, watched the Twin Towers collapse live on TV, dropped out, entered one of Canada’s most competitive job markets with no marketable skills or experience, and found minimum-wage work at a company that went bankrupt three weeks after I was hired. In that order.

Consequently, the EP is a little overwrought - so much so that I cut a couple of particularly vindictive pieces from this edition of the EP. It also marks my first foray into the digital recording medium, as I began toying with simple wave editing programs. Thus, the EP is split fairly evenly between my half-assed stab at drum 'n' bass and 4-track shitfits.

But hey, it’s almost springtime, so better to get the junk and skeletons out of the closet - right, Eliot?

Why Gaijin?

Yeah, just TRY and integrate, bitch

Recently, I was quoted by the incisive bullshit-callers over at my favourite foreigner-in-Nippon blogs, Westerner's Fear of Neon Sign. Specifically, an anecdote of mine was relayed in a post detailing "The Seven Stages of Gaijinhood." I've become a dedicated reader of WFoNS because few other bloggers as honestly appraise the unusual circumstances of being a foreigner in the most homogenous of developed nations; WFoNS maitre d' Calligraphy Kid is far from a fawning Japanophile, yet he resists the easy temptations of reactionary cynicism or softcore racism to which so many foreigners succumb.

Particularly impressive is that WFoNS dances along the knife's edge of writing objectively about gaijin while being gaijin. This is akin to taking judo lessons with vials of nitroglycerin stuffed in your pockets: not even a closeted homosexual raised as a Southern Baptist can compete with the self-loathing mustered by your average gaijin. To wit, this post from last fall describes the Western expat community in Japan as

that most mutually hateful and backstabbing of tribes... On an intellectual level, knowledge of things Japanese decreases in value the more people share it. On another, more carnal level, the attraction of Japanese women diminishes as more men partake of it. It goes without saying that foreigners in Japan, or gaijin, are natural rivals and have rarely produced anything of worth in collaboration with one other... Better reserve ‘we’ for strictly rhetorical use among foreigners in Japan.

...Which pretty much nails it on the head. What kind of a community coalesces around the mutual fear that you're all giving each other a bad name? The paranoia and self-policing inherent in being an Occidental is painful: everyone who sports a similar accent, appearance, or attitude could be totally ruining it for you and should be regarded, at best, with suspicion or, at worst, understated contempt. (I developed an especially icy regard for Australians, who I pinpointed as the prime offenders - but can you really blame me when I worked for this guy?)

What you'll also notice about the logic behind the gaijin's self-alienation is that it's total bullshit. Competition for social supremacy & cultural authority? As a foreigner in a country famed for its isolationism and xenophobia? Are you joking? Yet this Orientalist pissing contest is at the fore of a foreigner's thoughts at all times. Which is bloody stupid. Suffice it to say: not once when I've been in Vancouver have I seen two Chinese guys decked out in flannel shirts, tocques, and Sorels cattily correcting each other's Canadian raising over a can of Molson. Why? Because that's fucking ridiculous.

Now, counter to behavioral trends, I actually did produce works of worth with fellow foreigners (among others) during my tenure in Tokyo. In fact, this was largely because - at present - integration isn't an option: I was liberated from the quotidian responsibilities of the citizenry. I was afforded the objective distance that allowed me to focus on my particular curiosities & enthusiasms.

Which is why I unabashedly apply the word to myself. I incorporated "gaijin" in this blog's domain name, and into one of my e-mail addresses, not in a fit of Japanophilic flag-waving (I don't live there any more), but because the word distills a certain estrangement that is fundamental to how I relate to my surroundings. I choose the word not for its novelty, but because of its delicate suggestion of anti-socialism and self-imposed seperation. My nickname in North America is "the Old Man," which I enjoy, but that denies a certain vigor with which I still attack my endeavours. Similarly, I'm not vicious enough to feel comfortable self-describing as "Schadenfreude Seb." No sir; I'm afraid only the flavour of "gaijin" pleases my palette. Besides, there's an enjoyably Moebius-like logic that applying the word "gaijin" to myself will alienate certain people with whom the word identifies me.

The great irony to the gaijin's self-loathing is that it's as lazy & unsophisticated as any other prejudice: after all, gaijin frequently have nothing in common and, ergo, are of no threat to each other. Ah ha, but then isn't the resentment justified if so many dissimilar entities are clumsily lumped under the same umbrella? Well, shit, you got me there. But as long as people still debate whether label appropriation is positive and are unsure if "Bitch" is the new black, the war over the word shall rage on.

Postscript:: Rereading Tokyology's "I, Gaijin?" post (quoted above), a particularly backwards bit of logic had previously slipped by me. Personally disavowing use of "gaijin," Tokyology elaborates on acceptable social parameters for the word:

I don’t object at all to Japanese use of the word gaijin. I think it’s charming evidence of the time lapse in identity politics between Japan and multiracial nations. In a reversal of positive label appropriation, gaijin only sounds derogatory when I apply it to myself. I don’t want to refer to myself as a gaijin and I can’t understand foreigners who do. The word reeks of slow-burning underachievement.

Let that stew for a minute. It's okay for the people who originated the word (as a racial slur) to continue using it, in whatever tone they like, because it betrays their quaint lack of sophistication. But for those to whom the word applies, to use it is demeaning and ghettoizing.

Wow. Now that is spectacularly ass-backwards. Hey, how about all the white people start tossing around the N-word because (the fools!) it reveals how socially unhip those crackers are, but under no circumstance shall the word be used by, or among, African-Americans (or -British or -Canadians) because it is a shamefully derogatory term, and its use a confession of inferiority. What the hell.

The truly telling moment within the above passage, though, is that last sentence: "The word reeks of slow-burning underachievement." This is not the first time that a confession of brutal self-doubt and second-guessing of purpose has passed for social commentary on WFoNS. The problem is that this existential panic is projected onto every other foreigner in the Far East. There may be a significant number of emotional refugees and self-defeatists living in bottles around Japan - but they're everywhere else too.

Perhaps The Problem is rooted in the way white middle-class language teachers monopolize the word, much the same way the United States has ruined "America" for a whole hemisphere. Typical, innit? How people use a word betrays more about their sense of self than social conventions. If only they were as concerned with how other people relate as they are with publishing & maintaining their self-image. Smack me if I ever don't include myself in that admonition.

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.