HOLCOMBE WALLER: INTO THE DARK UNKNOWN

EVB has a lovely interview with Portland/via New York transplant Holcombe Waller. I love this man - he's like equal parts Laurie Anderson and Elliot Smith (*yeah, bad analogy - but the visuals and quiet impact of the work is what i'm trying to convey) and he's the only one I've seen nail Brel's "Ces Gens La" with such awesome presence and staging.
In any case - this video for "Bored of Memory" is a beautiful sumptuous visual of a sandbar (maybe in the Columbia?) that shows 2 cute guys falling in love.   Video is here.

PJ Harvey - The Words That Maketh Murder

Only Polly Jean Harvey can deliver on an autoharp and a prayer. I agree w/Patti Smith - that song does make you happy to be alive. Sigh.

My LA Montage

State of MY union:  I just need three things in life: love, love and love...  that and a killer soundtrack with a John Hugh's like teenage 80's abandon to dance around in a slow Santa Monica surf Bruce Weber inspired montage.  
Oh - if was all this gleeful and inspiring, we'd have healthcare figured out by now.  See the new video by the awesome, sexy Patrick Wolfe after the jump (*and go to his website to download free tracks).   {Post Courtesy of World of Wonder}

Acceptable Abuse Policies

My fave femigossip site, Jezebel, linked to this sad, but interesting article in the Guardian about the cyclical return to misogynistic lyrics/narratives in pop music. Deborah Finding has been tracking various memes in pop music over the last 50 years and found a disturbing trend that emerges every so often in the lyrics: some form of acceptable domestic abuse. She site's the early 60's Crystal's "He Hit Me (and it felt like a kiss)" as a jumping off point and then tracks the social awareness and political stance through to the 90's with Suzanne Vega, Tracy Chapman, Tori Amos (etc), and then see's a recent re-emergence of the "Gosh - I was surely asking for it" narrative again from recent UK winners, Florence and the Machine in the Post-feminist era. If anything is a canary in the coal mine how we're doing socially - attitudes toward women are a warning sign that we're not empowering generations to realize this shit is bad: we tolerated Slim Shady in the early 0ughties. Ladies and Gentlemen: civil discourse has left the building.
And now we're seeing in addition to this an 11% increase in hate crimes in the US - not to overlap issues, but usually when there's hatin' on the ladies, there's sure to be hatin' on the queers as well. I won't be one of those greying hipsters who condems rap in one breath and then says' they embrace the irony in the second - no, because it's not just hiphop: it's pervasive in quite a few music genres. I won't be banning anyone soon - but I will - as Lady Gaga suggests, shout them down as much as possible.
I guess, as Jezebel suggests - one strategy is to take the song and recontextualize it. Kinda like Tori Amos did in "Bonnie and Clyde 97" where she reduces Eminem's misogynistic rap to creepy element: Eminem is f'd up and creepy. In a similar vein, we've got queerish Grizzly Bear covering "He Hit Me". This is questionable if they're recontextualizing the meaning or simply enjoying a song's 4-part harmony (*that was written by Carole King after learning that one of the Crystal's was in fact abused by her boyfriend). I don't know. You be the judge.

(BTW - Hole covered this a while back and it, uh, kinda... well - you know.)

Popular Resistance

File from a "Future that never happened" circa 1999 (as intrepeted from 1982): I love this video mashup of post-punk group Family Fodder's "Film Music" with a 1982 BBC sci-fi drama "Play for Tomorrow". The low-brow neutral patina of what is supposed to be a minimalist future (complete with a pop-history that is hyper-linked by flat screen TV's) is nothing short of a brilliant advertisement for youth rebellion as choreographed by American Apparel. Description of the short as follows:

Shades By Stephen Lowe. 1999 again: A tower block contains youths ‘bought off’ by the government, in a climate of microchip-created endless leisure, who experience (often pornographic) virtual reality-style fantasies by donning the titular ’shades’, until a 1980s theme party (they predicted that right, at least) leads to ideology and political thought seeping in under the dazed lifestyle.

How can you go wrong with wrap-around shades and a belted lame tunic, I ask?

Sequins: Sequence: Sequinsissential

Ok - the last gasp from the spectacle that was the Jacko Memorial, and no more jokes: I point you to the quote from my more succesful doppleganger below (in his 96 reaction during the brit awards):



...and this quote from Momus:

Michael Jackson is not just the King of Pop, but the Last King of Pop. Three major factors will prevent there ever being another one: digital culture and its fragmentation of the big "we are the world"-type audience into a million tiny, targeted audiences; the demographic decline of the "pigs in the pipe" (the Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y, who made pop music's four-decade-long pre-eminence possible); and the decline of the influence of the United States...
"I think we're seeing the re-appearance of class and caste. Michael Jackson's fame comes from a cultural period -- postmodern global consumerism -- when the distinction between high and low collapsed. When Pierre Bourdieu surveyed French cultural tastes in the 1960s, he found that blue collar and white collar workers had completely different cultures -- classical music for the brain workers, cheap pop for the hand workers. A few decades later, postmodern consumer culture had leveled that, at least superficially: now, people with college degrees spoke about Michael Jackson "intelligently", people from lower class backgrounds spoke about him "passionately". But everybody spoke about him. Now that postmodernism is coming to an end, and now that narrowcasting and social networking limit our encounters with "the class other", I think we'll see different classes embracing different cultures again. Things will settle back into the kind of cultural landscape Bourdieu described in "Distinction"."

Gay Fried Day

Ok, this is posted after the fact, but whatevs... here's what I did on my summer vacation: Went on the "Goth Pride 09" float, sauntered over to the Seattle Center, then caught "Hunx and his Punx" at the Funhouse along with the Onono's...

King of Never

Yeah - i heard, and somewhere there is a million punchlines that are not worth uttering... Sufficeth to say however, Jacko's death is unreal, in the kingdom of the unreal, much like his life. It doesn't take some coked-out cultural theory grad to see the inherent ironies of his success and persona against race, gender and orientation, and I'm sure the blogs will be speculating this at this posited time and place - just what does it mean now that we've not this troubling infantile, video-age gender-queer Peter Pan figure? Also, seeming that he had a hard time keeping the (cough - child-sized - ahem) skeletons in the closet, will even more details arrive to the surface to distract us from real horrors (uhm, Iran where they pretty much have no tolerance for anything between male or female)...

Summer Soundtracks, pt 1

I am absolutely in love with the new Erik Blood cd. Local lead singer of the Turn On's, he's done this amazing loving tribute to all things shoegazery (My Bloody Valentine, Ride, any soundtrack by Kevin Shields)... "To Leave America" is an awesome, running track that captures the sense of escape (*especially from about 4 years ago when patriotic sentiment was at an all time low and everyone was wanting to emigrate to Berlin). Other tracks have that driving wall of bending sonic distortion sound from MBV and makes me want to dance in a whirling dervish of plaid and self-referential irony from the early 90's...

In other music news - how awesome is this small-budget video from Peaches? I would love to have someone come clean with me in this fashion:

Ashram Techno

It's truly amazing when someone takes something and recontextualizes it for the sole purposes of making you shake your ass... In this case, the band Duchess Says digs up an old video from 1984 of the Rajneesh cult fanatics doing some hardcore yoga-channeling--freaky-cult-thingy. Not really sure if the band knows the full story, but they do call the vid a "New Age Conspiracy from 1984" - and as anyone growing up in Central Oregon in the 70's and 80's recalls, they did implode from charges of racketeering, extortion and attempted murder (yes, even more colorful than the Soprano's - in shades of Plum, cranberry and Violet, no less). In any case - ya gotta love the readymade art direction and the effects (Neo-Hippies! Ashram Techno! Monochromatic Basics!). I think American Apparel may have just found it's new ad campaign for the fall season (*and who knew the compound had so many hotties back then? Granted, they were all crazy and delusional)...

The Sound of One Universe Collapsing

Internet coolness discovered on an achy holiday morning... The B Flat project which loops together several collaborative youtube vids of musical instruments, found sounds and effects, all playing B Flat. Beautiful if you play them at once, or in gradual ensemble... Sounds like we're listening to a piece by Steve Reich... Simply gorgeous, and incidentally B Flat is the sound of black holes as they suck in matter...

Seattle Sex-City

Ok - my more successful doppelganger, Jarvis Cocker, was again highlighted on Big Stereo doing his usual moves: Playing to a crowd in Paris and going in his 70's monster-rock mode... Yes, we both have facial hair and over sized frames which looks odd on small heads, yes we both have fey-mannerisms (him because he's skinny and English. me because I'm skinny and well, just fey). Yes, we are both middle-aged art-damaged otters. But, he stole my look first. I've long been doing the over-sexed professor look - he only recently grow out his facial hair. I must say that I'm tempted to go back to the old Jarvis look (that I also sported in the 90's): Tight low cut disco shirts and slim fitting polyester trousers, and snide irony. Oh well. As far as comparisons go - I'll take this over John Hodgman (which I got quite a few years/pounds ago)...

Mod Ettes

Because I love all things twee and postpunk girl-power pop, i am still lovin' that the kids at BigStereo posted the Mo'Dettes video from the 80's... I love this video the same way I love my Ronettes, perfect pop hooks and arrangements, detached bassists, jangly twee handclapping arrangements and chroma-key effects to match your ensemble. This makes me want to dance in the spring rain in a cherry colored rain coat and bright yellow shoes (ala Jaques Demy).

The Unheard Music

So, grandpa decided to go see his favorite olde timey punk band, X - perhaps the greatest American band ever (*with the exception of Johnny Cash and the whole Carter clan)... When I told friends I was going, I got "Who?".... Sigh, People!! X were the band formed in Los Angles in the late 70's with the whole advent of socal punk... they combined punk with a dash of country soul, and quite alot of poetic imagery and American Gothic to boot. They were the soundtrack of my teen years, ironically enough, country purists in the sense of the word (forming side projects the knitters)... Soooo, in any case, they rocked. I was worried that this would be billed a reunion tour (Billy Zoom joining them), and thus it'd be a badly attended affair... Full of a few die-hards like me and my friend Cheryl, but it wasn't... The place was sold out, with a huge diverse crowd (from Punk dad's to rockabilly Betty's to kids)... And the band was tight and awesome... Probably b/c they were sober and had more focus than ever. They played like they had never left off from playing at the Whiskey in 1980, Exene and John Doe's June Carter/Johnny Cash delivery over punk power chords coming from Billy Zoom (looking like Jerry Lee Lewis) and DJ's driving drum beat still sounded incredibly fresh... And finally, the spirit of protest was still inherent in their songs... After over 20 years, the lyrics for "New World" still rings true of the situation today in Amerika:
"....honest to goodness the bars werent open this morning they must have been voting for a new president of something do you have a quarter?" i said yes because i did honest to goodness the tears have been falling all over the countrys face it was better before before they voted for whats his name this is suppose to be the new world"

They Make Kembra Pfahler Dolls? I want one...

In the They-don't-make-them-scary-performance-artist-types-like-that-but-they-really-outta-start-reissuing-them-soon-cause-complacency-in-the-arts-and-feminist-backlash-is-really-chaffing-my-behind, Kembra Pfahler and the Voluptuous Horrors of Karen Black get their due at this year's Whitney...

Run-ins With Rufus

Ok - my brushes with Rufus:
1) Sometime near the dawn of the new century (1999 or 2000?), Ian and I went to see him play at Areospace (at the old/neu-Moe)... Ian commented that he was wearing his mother's patchwork bellbottoms (Obviously seen on the Magarical Family Christmas specials), and he made sure to touch his hand while getting his CD autographed (as he is want to do with any celebrity).
2) Sometime a year or two later (2001?), Ian and I are in line at the Cha Cha and Rufus is standing behind us. We comment on how good his show was. He describes the green room below in Areospace and ask if we've ever been. I make some lame comment that it must be pretty big that kills the conversation right there.
3) A few years later (2004), my then BF and I are staying at the Dufferin in Vancouver, watching bad strippers and gravitating towards equally bad karaoke next door. Rufus has just finished his concert in the Orpheum and is at the Dufferin bar with entourage. We stand about 10 feet away, newly sober and wearing lifts.
4) 2008 After much shunning of the Garland album, I break down and purchase 2 tickets for Paula and I to see him at the Paramount. Even though he was slightly far away - his voice still carries and his charm was still ethereal and acoustic.

Temptation

While I can blog poetic about the Oscars, or the fact I rode 38 miles in the Bainbridge Chilly Hilly, I won't, and will instead leave you with the rockin version Beth Ditto and Jarvis Cocker did on Heaven 17's "Temptation":

Powerpoint Rocks!!!

...in more awesome realms, someone actually went to the trouble to create graphs and charts for pop songs. Yes, it's webtarded, but extremely gratifying (once you get what song they're doing)...

Hauntology and Home Taping

I've been blind for so long - how could I not know about or ignore Ariel Pink? I've seen the name pop up, noticed he played a few shows up here and haven't really bothered to listen to his music until just recently... A young man who basically records perfect/yet-distorted anti-fi pop songs on a 4-track so relentless that they sound always in context of something else. Hauntology is the word I best believe is used to describe this effect and the effect is amazing... Listening to his recordings, I feel like he's capturing any of the following:
1) You're driving late at night listening to AM radio in rural towns and due to the strange static, it all sounds like Captain Beefheart trying to sound commercial (but doesn't).
2) An Alternate Universe in the 70's where Bowie and president Nixon never existed and the arrival of the moog happened 30 years earlier.
3) You're in a recently democratized country and they're playing their local pop music (which was filtered through Eurovision contests).
4) You find a VHS tape with the following video

Time Travel

Hot on the heels of being ambushed by friends from high school to make it to my 20yr Reunion, i decided to time travel back to teenage bedroom, circa 1984. It's part of the Miranda July assignment to draw a picture from your teenage bedroom... So here I am, drawing it... Hopefully, I won't pollute the timestream too much. The old 14yr old is asking me a ton of questions about the future... I simply nod and say nothing. I am trying to capture all of the 80's new-wave britmania I had going on at the time. I think most of it came from the English music tabloids (complete with lyrics and posters) and large scale posters I purchased from Rising Sun Records. I was prematurely convinced that these bands would change the world, as they did my hairstyle at the time... Little did i know then that the posters would change (some more obscure bands, giant photo's friends took at the time, eventually a chaotic mural i painted that would later be painted grey)... Now it's the southwest room (redone shortly after i left) probably going to be renovated into my parent's own masterbedroom at some point.