Monday, August 25, 2008

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #31



It's often difficult to tell how an artist will be without the band he/she started with. Fans get very attached to bands as a whole, and whether the band actually breaks up or the members decide to do side projects, they're always comparing the solo projects with the original band line-up. Some, like Morrissey and Bjork, go on to have very successful careers on their own while others like Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler never regain the same magic they had together when on their own (they couldn't even recapture that magic when back together as The Tears). Others continue with the same smaller, cultish fanbase they had in the firstplace. And still others, manage to form new bands and collaborations that either flourish or flop. The big question is: where is Crispin Hunt? Last I heard, he's forming bands and projects only never to release anything (except for the oddly-titled project Mayonnaise four years ago). Don't get me wrong, I really like Richard Hawley, but surely more potential could come out of the long defunct Longpigs.

Because I'm a bit short on time this week, I've included a bunch of artists that went solo after being in bands I quite love. Not comprehensive, but I can always make a second mix in the future. I'm going to call this mix One Wo/Man Show.

And if it seems like I'm even more lazy with this blog than usual this week, it's because I'm headed off to Edmonton to present a paper at an academic conference and won't be back til the beginning of next week. I'll try to come up with some extra stuff when I get back.

Friday, August 22, 2008

The Girl Who Wanted to Be God: Gender and Music



Gender has been a fascinating concept for me, especially ever since I started university eight years ago. I've only taken two courses that actually dealt with gender directly (one on the Rhetoric of Gender and the other on Sexual Disguise in the 18th century), but they were enough, along with my general interest in androgyny, to give me a good sense of gender as a social construct. Even within the context of gender classes, where people should be most open to gender variation and ideas, I felt like a bit of a square peg because I'm not some militant feminist. To be particularly ornery, I would always twist my essay topics into ones that either dealt with androgyny or masculinity as a concept - the rest of the class likely had the feminist issues covered anyway. Admittedly, feminism is/was important, especially considering the track history of the world, but I figure that gender equality should work both ways when gender performance theory is concerned. Men are performing just as much as women are. And I generally don't care for stereotyping and those who feel they must adhere to gender stereotypes. Then again, maybe this is because I don't often fit into one very neatly.

One particularly irritating stereotype is the one that implies females cannot be involved in music the same way males can, whether it be as an artist or a critic or a fan. Sure, females can be artists, but they'll always run up against some sort of crazy catch-22 where if they're too masculine, they're betraying their femininity, but if they're too feminine, they're just playing into female stereotypes. Just read Simon Reynolds and Joy Press's book The Sex Revolts to experience this frustration (I disagreed with several points in the book's argument, especially the chapter that dealt with The Clash and the Manic Street Preachers, which argued that both bands were so homosocial and "gang-like" that they deliberately excluded women from their worlds - anyone who actually knows anything about both bands couldn't possibly criticize them for this borderline misogynist attitude). Additionally, sure, there have been female music journalists/critics, just not nearly as many as male ones, nor as many famous ones - I know that I haven't ever been aware of being a fan of a female music journalist or critic. And as far as music fans go, most music magazines are clearly aimed at a male market as males are assumed to be the most fanatical and obsessive when it comes to loving music. Females are often portrayed as being less critical in their music choices and as lovers of popular music rather than alternative styles, that they are more suited for fawning, groupie-like behaviour than that of intelligent connoisseurs. It's all ludicrous from my point of view, but then again, just by scanning through the MP3 blogs out there and The Hype Machine demographics, I would have to admit that the vast majority are written and consumed by males.

In the research I've done on blogs and general blogging behaviour, it seems more females blog than males, but that they are more likely to favour the diary style as opposed to the filter style, which is arguably more objective and usually about topics and issues outside of the blogger's personal life (ie: politics, technology, etc.). When doing my own primary research about MP3 blogs, I noticed a plethora of styles that couldn't be concretely linked to the bloggers' genders. In many cases, bloggers, including myself, use pseudonyms that don't readily reveal the bloggers' genders. To be honest, I hadn't really thought too much about whose blogs I was reading in relation to their gender identity - selection of music and writing style most often draw me to particular MP3 blogs more than anything else, which I assume is the case for most other MP3 blog readers. At least I hope so.

Interestingly enough, I received a comment awhile back on a post I wrote about not wanting to grow up; it stated that the feelings I was expressing were a "boy thing." I've also been called a "dude" or "guy" in other places by other bloggers and once or twice in comments on my YouTube videos. I find this rather fascinating from a rhetorical standpoint - it means that something in my style or rhetorical presence connotes masculinity. At this point, I don't quite know what it is since I analyze enough rhetoric without bothering with my own (I'd rather not be too conscious of the how in case it affects and influences my future writing). Admittedly, ever since I was younger I read books mostly by male authors, but did that really shape me and my future writing style, or was there something in my nature that drew me to them first? And why can I only share my musical fanaticism with males (most of the females I know get glassy eyes after I ramble on too long about music)? Is any of this related to each other? I hadn't until recently realized how out of place I seemed in my attitude towards music (and several other things, mind), but gender performance and societal expectations seem to explain this issue.

Though the song, The Girl Who Wanted to Be God, was definitely not one of the Manic Street Preachers' finest moments, it still holds some of Richey Edwards' most cryptic lyrics as far as I'm concerned (okay, Revol is also a bit of a mystery). Having a history of writing songs that either criticized or bemoaned masculinity, Richey, and to a somewhat lesser extent Nicky Wire, seemingly wrote from a position of gender identity crisis. However, this song's meaning, no matter how much I use my university-educated guesswork about metaphor and imagery, still eludes me.

There are no sunsets just silence
You could see that she was true and faithless
But see through the future and forget all the lies
Black out the words for the blind have eyes
I am the girl who wanted to be God
There are times when you feel hopeless
Just for once for no-one else we are blameless
The dawn is still breaking its heaven is so high
She told the truth, told the truth and then she lied
Hold me she said love me to death


These lyrics switch between third and first person positions, seemingly making its narrator both objective and subjective. Is the girl the narrator? Is the girl actually a male narrator? How much of Richey can be read into these words? Like with most literature, no one will ever concretely know the answer; everything is speculation. While Richey often appeared to identify himself with females, whether through songs about prostitution or anorexia, it all seems to amount to his feeling trapped into gender performance expectations, and perhaps that's part of what made me identify with and love the Manics so much. As well-known as the Manics are for their comments and lyrics on politics, they are just as prolific in gender politics. Though the Manics did glam it up (and the Wire still does to an extent) in their beginning, emphasizing the artificiality of gender roles just as glam and camp acts always have, I think they had some of that more internal androgyny that Morrissey was so adept at expressing. My thinking is that androgyny of this sort would be a lot more helpful in creating a whole human than favouring one side of the gender spectrum in some global game of make-believe.

What came first, the gender stereotype or the behaviour? I suppose that's more of a question of nature versus nurture, which, with only an introductory course in Psychology under my belt, is an issue I'm not prepared to debate right now. In my perfect world, none of this would matter at all anyway. Gender is just one of the many ways of identifying who one is. I would much rather classify people by the music they love than whether they are female or male, girlie or boyish. In the words of Depeche Mode, people are people. And music is bigger than that.


Gender Bombs - The Stills

The Girl Who Wanted to Be God - Manic Street Preachers

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Rekindling My Words: Kingfishers Catch Fire


I'm in one of those exhausted, used-up moods. With a bit of writer's block thrown in for grim measure. Blogs are a lot more work than I anticipated - I truly admire those who manage to blog everyday and yet have something substantial and interesting to say. I'm having one of those weeks where I just want to curl up with old music because all the newer stuff isn't inspiring me at all. I'm also still in the middle of cutting my 100-page thesis down into a 12-page paper to present at a conference next week. So I'm caught between a writer's block and a difficult headspace.

Despite my frantic scrabbling through some of the promotional emails I received in the past couple weeks to see if I could find something to write about, I came up empty-handed. However, through the serendipity of MySpace, I did manage to find a band that cleansed my brain of some of its cobwebs with its romantic, pastoral music. London duo, Kingfishers Catch Fire, which features William Robertson and Lucinda Godwin (not to be confused with the Australian band of the same name) is named for a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and captures my imagination in the way any sort of decadent/romantic literature does. While their music may just be for the sake of a creative outlet without any intention of selling it to anyone (it's too early to tell and there's something distinctly personal about it - as though you've stumbled across some poet's secret hideaway), I would definitely purchase it if it were ever for sale.

As stated in their MySpace profile, the songs are personal, presented with the fragility of a candied violet. Lily on the Grass begins with an acoustic guitar and a strain of violin that capture the simultaneous exhilaration and temporality of a beautiful moment: "But I can't help but sing/Foreboding notwithstanding/Lily on the grass, I'm delighted." It is the ephemeral nature of these sublime moments that makes them so perfect in the first place, and this song gently breathes that sentiment like sun-warmed grass. Thérèse has a darker undercurrent to it as the vocal swings between bittersweet melancholy and howling passion and electric guitars buzz in the background. Namechecking Rudolf Arnheim, the German art theorist/perceptual psychologist, Between Light and Dark sounds like a ramble over a forest floor blanketed with leaves in dappled autumn sunlight while the song actually entitled Autumn is delicate as lacework and fills my nostrils with the smoky, crisp scent of fall. The poetry of the lyrics in Autumn transports you back to a time when poetry was unabashed and ornamental and when language was wielded skillfully: "Boy wonder, torn asunder;/Blind mirror of a mercurial Nature./Sunrise 'phemeral world alive in amber/With a redwing in flight from the shade of a bower." Kingfishers Catch Fire's music makes me feel a Victorian picnic by a bubbling brook. A decadent garden party at a manor house. A place where Bright Young Things can congregate in the last hedonistic summer of their youth, where simply looking divine gives you immortality. Somewhere where people love and feel too deeply to survive very long.

It's nice to know that when I'm at a loss for words, music can gently coax them back.

Kingfishers Catch Fire's MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/williamofellington

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #30


I've stated before in this blog how I'm not really into gooey romance and grand gestures (see my Valentine's Day post); I honestly find them quite mortifying. I'm also certain that I've never been in love, and most of the passing infatuations I've had in life have been with people I would never actually meet. Dysfunctional perhaps. Maybe a bit autistic. However, after finally watching Before Sunset, which was the sequel to one of my favourite films Before Sunrise, I realized that love and romance could be done in art in a truly effective and affective way. I fell in love with the characters and their relationship (which was shot nearly in real time in the first film and then all in real time in the sequel) as much as the characters themselves fell in love. The bulk of both films is natural dialogue in which the characters reveal themselves to each other in idiosyncratic speech and hypocritical logic, but what really gets me is the sense of reality and honesty they both have about love and romance and their own flaws, trying to convince themselves that they would likely fall out of love if they spent more than that one day together. Before Sunrise has an open ending that leaves the audience wondering and imagining if the two characters ever fulfill their rash promise to meet up again in Vienna in six months. I was so moved by the first film that I held off on seeing the sequel for fear it would kill the beauty and potential of the first. Now that I've seen the sequel and have been confronted with yet another open ending, I still have that great bittersweet sense that the first film left me with. Like Ethan Hawke's character says in Before Sunset, if you believe the lovers get together, you're a romantic, and if you believe they don't, then you're a cynic. Simple as that. Brilliant filmmaking.

This realistic, but no less romantic, love story on film prompted me to see if I could find enough songs that expressed love for this weekly mix - I wanted to find songs that didn't do love in a hackneyed way, nor lust in a crass way. Love and lust and all other forms of attraction or relationships have been done to death in music. In fact, most pop tunes are love songs of some sort. I reckon love and lust and the fact they don't always accompany each other are a considerable part of human experience, and this is why these themes appear in every artform. It's the classic case of the dissonance between what people want and need, between dream and reality. And perhaps the need to make something more mythical about attraction and elevate the human experience also contributes to the plethora of expressions about love - hyperbole and all.

I tried to craft a mix that would reflect the multiple permutations and facets of this experience: the bumbling stupidity that love can plunge the most intelligent people into (Billy Bragg's The Saturday Boy, Elvis Costello's Alison); the all-consuming desire that can mingle with pain and drive one to darker extremes (Interpol's No I in Threesome, Placebo's Protege Moi, Sneaker Pimps' M'aidez); the confusion between friends and lovers and the uncertainty over what constitutes love and its consequences (Bernard Butler's Friends & Lovers, Club 8's Baby, I'm Not Sure If This is Love); the longing and regret when one errs and loses love (The Cure's Pictures of You, David Bowie's Letter to Hermione, Jeff Buckley's Lover, You Should Have Come Over); and the excitement, recklessness and novelty of an emotional connection (Lloyd Cole and the Commotions' Forest Fire, Orange Juice's L.O.V.E.). Love is more complex than I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Be My Baby. I tried for honesty and originality without completely giving over to cynicism. Maybe I'm a romantic after all. I'm going to call this one My Kingdom For a Kiss on the Shoulder.


I Would Die 4 U - Prince

Protege Moi - Placebo

No I in Threesome - Interpol

M'aidez (Acoustic Version) - Sneaker Pimps

Pictures of You - The Cure

Forest Fire - Lloyd Cole and the Commotions

L.O.V.E. - Orange Juice

Friends & Lovers - Bernard Butler

The Saturday Boy - Billy Bragg

Letter to Hermione - David Bowie

Alison - Elvis Costello

Fistful of Love (featuring Lou Reed) - Antony & the Johnsons

Foolish Love - Rufus Wainwright

Lover, You Should Have Come Over - Jeff Buckley

The Man With the Child in His Eyes - Kate Bush

Baby, I'm Not Sure This is Love - Club 8

Heart - Stars

Beyond Love - The The

You're the Conversation (I'm the Game)- Chris Corner and Sue Denim

Thursday, August 14, 2008

iTunes & I


It hit me a short while ago that I'm not the same type of music consumer I was a couple of years ago. I used to listen to music by either popping a CD into my stereo or by placing a record onto my turntable. Now I more than likely turn my computer on, and often whilst doing something else, or several other things, I listen to my iTunes library. It's become so second nature to me now that I hadn't even realized how much dust my stereo was collecting. And there's something profoundly sad about all this for me. Am I losing the pleasure of actually listening to music as opposed to hearing it?

I suppose my dependence on iTunes came about when I moved to Ontario for grad school last year and decided to forgo bringing a stereo and my hundreds of CDs with me (it was both impractical and risky - I treat my CDs and records like babies). In my tiny bedroom in a rather decrepit living situation, I turned up my computer's volume as high as it would go and used music as my usual remedy for the dismal world around me. On one notable occasion, I blasted The Clash's Sandinista from my bedroom in the morning so that my roommates wouldn't have the luxury of a lie in after keeping me up all night with their running about and laughing. No, computer speakers are no match for a proper stereo, and no, MP3 files are not up to the standard of proper recordings. But despite these drawbacks, I still enjoyed my music collection, which continued to expand unchecked by my limited finances (there was a fairly decent used CD shop a twenty-minute walk from my apartment). Rather than dropping my new purchases into a stereo, I ripped them to my increasingly gargantuan iTunes library and they joined my regular line-up (whatever that can entail when your line-up consists of over 5000 songs). Occasionally, I tried to have my first listen of full albums through my headphones on a Discman, so obviously I subconsciously believed there to be a difference between listening via iTunes and listening to the disc itself, independent of any other music or distractions.

I can't say that iTunes has made my desire for tangible music wane at all, mind. As I stated earlier, I still buy as many CDs as I used to, and if I had a proper job and more money, I would be buying a lot of vinyl, too. I've probably said it before, but I love looking at music as a package that includes liner notes with images and/or lyrics, and I also like to think that albums should be whole works of art, not piecemeal digital files. And one of my main criticisms of certain bands is the lack of a coherent vision in creating a record, producing a few hit singles and filler. Having said that, iTunes has made listening to disparate music as interesting as consuming an album in its entirety - the shuffle function, whether on my iPod or my iTunes, can place seemingly unrelated songs together in a serendipitous fashion that makes me hear and understand these songs in a whole new way. Then again, it can also frustrate me when I'm in a particular mood for certain songs and others come up instead. I do love The Mighty Boosh's Cockney Nutjob, but it can be jarring in the midst of Joy Division and The Clash. I suppose that the shuffle function works as my own personal commercial-free radio station, where I can constantly be surprised by songs I hadn't listened to in awhile or songs I haven't had a chance to listen to much before. But this process of consuming music is obviously a very different experience from carefully selecting an album or a mix I had crafted earlier and listening to it from beginning to end with complete concentration. However, have I always listened intently to music, or have I used it as a soundtrack to other activities more than I like to think?

Music, for at least as early as my early teens, has been a constant in the background - I could never do homework in complete silence. I still remember working on quadratic functions or organic chemistry problems whilst singing along to Savage Garden (an embarrassing admission, but I feel as though I must confess this aspect of my early teens - my taste was nowhere near as discriminating as it became later in life, and as disturbing as it is to remember, I was told a couple of times that I sounded quite like Darren Hayes at the time...I guess Bowie's voice was too low for a fourteen-year-old girl to emulate). I think I found abstract problem-solving easier to do as I multi-tasked with singing, whereas subjects that required a coherent argument, like English or History, forced me to relegate music to the background. Until a truly singable song came on and I stopped for a moment. It's like my brain works best when it's firing on all possible synapses, including the ones that appreciate music. Music still stimulates and inspires me as I think and write, making me come to fascinating conclusions that I don't remember coming to later. So then, has my consumption behaviour really changed as much as I think it has?

(Takes a break to sing along with The Boy With The Thorn in His Side)

iTunes and MP3s have facilitated many of the activities related to listening to music, including the creation of mixes and playlists, the search for particular artists, albums or songs, and the ability to skip over tracks. Maybe I feel guilty over this ease and immediacy - I feel that I should be able to search my own brain for an appropriate song rather than type in a keyword or that I should be handling actual discs rather than easily flitting from track to track along with my fickle moods. My discs and records are like people to me (when I buy them from used CD shops, I feel like I'm rescuing neglected orphans and healing them by replacing cracked case covers), and when I don't take them out to listen on my stereo, I feel like I'm not giving them the attention and commitment they deserve. Also, in order to keep my computer from exploding, I don't store every song I have on it, which does mean I might miss out on some of the music I didn't choose to add to my digital library for who knows what reason. I then wonder, though, if perhaps my attention has become more fragmented over time because I just simply have too much music to listen to than I did when my musical scope was much more limited. Exacerbating this situation is that fact that MP3s are easy to amass and transport, which makes my collection spiral out of control. My music is becoming a landslide let alone my life. This issue worries me, though, because I know that some songs take time to grow on me, and if I don't make that extra time, I might miss out on something magical.

(Stops for some air guitar to The Skids' Charade)

I guess I miss that feeling of taking time to appreciate music the same way I would a good book or film. Why does the visual consume us while we have to make an effort to be completely immersed by the aural? I blame the Enlightenment. My best friend and I used to spend hours playing albums to each other and trading music via cassette tape, and later, via CD. Now that she no longer lives in the same country, we've done a bit of trading both online and through the post, but it doesn't have that same great feeling of sharing an experience. Whether it be rapt admiration or fits of laughter or actual discussion about why certain songs are good. Even when they might turn out to be not so good later in life. Part of my motive for this blog probably has its roots in the need to share music in some communal way and to take the time to listen once again. To listen closely.

(Drums and sings along to The Sound of Arrows' Danger!)

I realize this post has been convoluted with pretzel-like logic. I still think that iTunes and MP3s have changed the way I consume music, but I can't quite articulate the real difference between my earlier self and my present self. Maybe it's more about how I've always had two ways of consuming music, and that iTunes has served to make me more aware of that fact. But I don't want to slip so completely into my iTunes library never to recall alternate ways of how to love music. I should really take my vinyl copy of The Queen is Dead out and listen to it while lying on the floor like I used to a few years back. Maybe everything would make sense again.


From Blown Speakers - The New Pornographers

Turn It Up - Robots in Disguise

Monday, August 11, 2008

Racing the Stars to Supernova: TNT Jackson's Across the Towers



Despite the fact the Austrian electro-trio TNT Jackson released their sophomore album Across the Towers nearly a year ago, I have only just discovered them (via their excellent single "You and My Pearldiver," which features vocals from Chris Corner and references Gary Numan's Are All Friends Electric - buy it from iTunes) and would like to write a bit about them. Named after a Blaxploitation film, TNT Jackson includes Dr. T, Mr. N, and Danny T (TNT, you see), and was apparently founded during a near fatal plane crash in Estonia. And as you can tell, TNT Jackson is also one of those bands with a carefully cultivated crypticism to their identity. Fair enough, the music tells a story that's more important than the truth.

The instrumental opener, Lamarr, beginning with chiming keyboards, is a breathtaking array of synths and drums that builds from the inner silence of a spaceship to all-out astral sonic warfare. The wittily-titled Leaving Out Vowels is So 2000 begins in a wonky, cosmic fashion, making use of all those fun reverb effects I used to play with on my Casio keyboard as a child. It sounds like an interstellar disco interspersed by old film strips of space documentaries or old series of Doctor Who. Queen of Hearts is funky electro with a retro vibe similar to that of Chromeo, and Cool Mister has a tense, dramatic groove to it that feels like a spy theme for the 25th century. I Dreamed of Chaka Khan could have been a Tiga song with its fey vocals and pumping, but smooth background. Hearkening back to the 80's, All Black is freeze-dried synthpop that melts in your mouth. Title track, Across the Towers, is driven by tight rhythms that sound like laser pistons in some rave at a NASA warehouse. Ivan's Got the Answer tells the story about some enigmatic character who could be a "joker or a thief" with a rather detached, robotic voice and refracts the music into more angularity like the speed of light bounced through a prismatic disco ball.

Pushit, which features Eddie Argos of Art Brut, is one of my favourites on the record with Argos' deadpan voice stretched taut over top of the whizzbangs of electro beats. The lyrics take us back to 1983 as Argos relates a story littered with satirical detail about cassette tapes in the car and women who wear sunglasses at night. Album closer Ours is Forever returns to some of those spacier effects that were used in Leaving Out Vowels, but slows down into a laidback electro-ballad like a cosmonaut serenading his lover over the rocket's communication system. It's both dreamy and ominous and just tapers off like a burnt-out star.

As a whole, the album is like an intense explosion in space contained by the vacuum around it - chaotic, but precise. There's always an undercurrent of energy threatening to blow the whole project satellite-high, but it remains harnessed to produce an intensely glowing core of atomic hedonism. TNT Jackson is the soundtrack to decadent urban youth racing the stars to supernova.

TNT Jackson's MySpace: www.myspace.com/tntjcksn


Sunday, August 10, 2008

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #29


This week is about a genre of music that can be viewed as both innovative and cheesy, both perennial and disposable, both recognizable and ubiquitous. It's like heavy metal for arty people. And it gets me every time. Synthpop.

With its earliest origins in experimental electronic music by Germans, namely Karlheinz Stockhausen and Kraftwerk, and then embraced by seemingly hundreds of British artists in the '80's, synthpop is largely associated with the New Romantics and a particularly flashy pose that often overshadowed content. And of course the synthesizer (and its attendant drum machines) was the fantastic new toy with which these bands played, creating bubbly, fizzy pop; pumping, high-energy dance music; moody, angsty love songs; and atmospheric, more serious pieces obviously influenced by Bowie and Eno. Along with this scene went thousands of remixes and extended dance mixes, some of which appear in this compilation.

Synthpop and the New Romantics took the glam pose and attitude from the 70's and transposed it into the futuristic, and often clinical, element of electronic music. With its excesses, seemingly trying every effect in the synthesizer manual and trying every film trick possible in their music videos, synthpop bands often characterized the greedy superficial '80's as a whole; however, this apparently excessive fancy dress party still managed to create decent, memorable songs, and yes, they were unabashedly popular, hence the "pop" in synthpop. Oddly enough, as throwaway as many of the lyrics are and as lightweight as many of the songs are, when my sister was a teenager in the '80's, many kids associated synthpop with the intellectual kids - perhaps there was always a sense of play and irony about the synthpop detachment or the fact they made an art out of performance. The British synthpop bands seem to have such an effect on the genre that nearly all synthpop acts, whether they're British or not, sing in that rather overwrought, posh accent, which I know very well that I'm a sucker for.

I've personally always been drawn to synthpop at least as far back as that Choose 80's cassette I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Although I have a feeling I heard the likes of Tears for Fears and Duran Duran when I was much younger and instinctively enjoyed it as a child. My predilection for men in eyeliner and floppy blouses, moving like robots over multiple keyboards started rather early and never left me. Those shimmery synthy sounds still make me unaccountably joyful - maybe I was an androgynous robot in a former life. Just as synthpop continues to influence newer bands and morphs into electropop, electroclash, EBM, et cetera, this mix reflects both the older and newer versions of the genre, placing Japan and Pet Shop Boys alongside Ladytron and Don Juan Dracula. Although, admittedly, most of it is still 80's because I'm such a retro nerd. I also attempted to throw in some lesser known bands like Furniture and Screaming for Emily. And before someone mentions it, I'll acknowledge that the opening track for this mix is by Ricky Gervais's short-lived band, Seona Dancing - and as wrong as it may be, I like the song quite a bit. The Office...pfft. Seona Dancing should have gone on to conquer more than just the Philippines. This mix is called Spin Me Right Round With Tears in My Eyes.


More To Lose (12" Extended Mix) - Seona Dancing

If You Leave (12" Spiral Mix) - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

The Sun Always Shines on TV - a-ha

We Run - Strange Advance

Just Can't Get Enough - Depeche Mode

Take Me Home - Don Juan Dracula

It's a Sin (Disco Mix) - Pet Shop Boys

A Little Respect (Extended Mix) - Erasure

Tangiers - The Screaming Trees

Big Blue World - Paul Haig

No Stars - Figures on a Beach

Pale Shelter - Tears for Fears

Deep Blue - Ladytron

The Color of Love - Beborn Beton

Face to Face - Heart to Heart - Twins

Brilliant Mind - Furniture

Fade to Grey - Visage

Newsreel - Fad Gadget

Last Goodbye - Screaming for Emily

The Chauffeur - Duran Duran

Ghosts - Japan

NOTE: At the request of Brad (and perhaps others), here is the zip file of the whole mix. If others want this feature reinstated for my weekly mixes, please let me know.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Worshipping The Leper Messiah: David Bowie Live Santa Monica '72


Bootlegs are extraordinary things - they can be a sign of subcultural capital, a souvenir from a gig you were at, or in many cases, the only way you can ever get to experience a band/artist in their prime. They're traditionally supposed to exist outside the official music industry and economy, hence the term bootleg, passed along between fans, acting as a currency of sorts. Of course some people end up making rather official-looking bootleg records and CDs and then selling them, and these bootlegs can become just as treasured and rare as others. I, myself, own most of my bootlegs via digital files transferred to disc, and I'm incredibly thankful that so many people post live gigs for free download, even if they're sometimes difficult to find. So as much as I still wish I could have seen The Smiths live or the Manics when Richey was still a part of the band, at least I can gain a little insight into what it would have been like to be there through the dozens of bootlegs I've amassed. To add to my few "official" bootlegs, I've now got David Bowie's 1972 gig in Santa Monica, which was re-released a few weeks ago, and I'm quite pleased I have it despite the fact it's clearly one of those re-release money grab situations. While I thankfully did get to see Bowie live once during his Reality tour (third row seats, for which I'm particularly grateful), I obviously would have loved to see him during his Ziggy Stardust days, and this bootleg puts me smack back into that time.

This box set is aesthetically very pleasing and includes all those fun extras that fans like going through in addition to liner notes - exclusive photos from RCA, the concert review featured in the LA Times, and the liner notes booklet itself. Robert Hilburn. who wrote the review in the LA Times, provides some fantastic visuals for you as you listen to the disc and imagine being there:

Bowie, with a background in mime, has enormous stage control and is able to accomplish more with the mere movement of his eyes than most performers in rock can do with a whole series of exaggerated movements. His body is so disciplined that Bowie can create the tension of a wild animal, a tiger or panther as he prowls the stage, controlling the pace and direction of the show as he moves.

In addition, to the beautiful presentation, the performance itself is just brilliant in spite of mistakes and screeches of feedback. Bowie's theatricality and charm is tangible as he works his way through hits from Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory, Space Oddity, The Man Who Sold the World, and even The Jean Genie from the forthcoming Aladdin Sane. The setlist is also representative of the impressive body of work that Bowie had already created by that time - there aren't any songs from bad or non-descript albums that you inevitably contend with at Bowie shows now (I don't care how many punters want to hear Modern Love, David, you don't need to sing it anymore - replace it with Letter to Hermione).

There are many places on this bootleg that just transport me back to an excitement I will never get to experience firsthand: the rumbling bass building and building in the opening of Changes; the mesmerizing lonely drumbeat in Five Years echoing throughout the venue like an apocalyptic tribal call; the absolutely blistering Mick Ronson guitar solos in The Width of a Circle, Moonage Daydream, Waiting For the Man, and Sufragette City; Bowie asking in his camp voice for "pliers or a strong hand" as he prepares for the acoustic break, including a performance of Space Oddity in which he drones his own special effects and his voice just soars flawlessly; the haunting and emotional cover of Jacques Brel's My Death that makes my heart flutter; the frenetic, wild performance of one my favourite Bowie songs, Queen Bitch; and the poignant, appropriate finale of Rock 'n Roll Suicide where Bowie rasps "Gimme your hands" over and over, and I want to reach out to the stereo.

Overall, the gig was one of those perfect ones, where it was obvious David Bowie was completely in his element and at one of the several peaks of his career, still at the cusp of the most productive decade of his life. As much as I wish I had paid my $5.50 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on October 20, 1972, I must make do with this historical recording of when David Bowie truly was otherworldly.

MP3 Blogs vs Music Blogs: Part II


Largely unbeknownst to me, it seems my last, rather informal, post on the differences between music blogs with MP3s and those without became a wee bit of a meme (let's put it this way - I got far more mentions on other blogs, feeds and sites than I ever had before and would ever had expected from my cobwebby corner of cyberspace). Now that my MA thesis on MP3 blogs' rhetoric and social meaning is finished, and now that I've thought myself into a nervous breakdown of sorts, I have a few more opinions about this topic that I came to while finishing the behemoth.

Before I explore my own arguments a little further, I would like to address a few different opinions that seemed to emerge in reaction to my earlier post. Firstly, I found a post from incidentals and accidentals, which took issue with the fact I said posting music that you didn't like would be a waste of time, especially for those who write music blogs for a hobby. This blogger's exact words were:

This is the line of thinking that always really burns me. All the kvetching about the sheeplike tendencies of mp3 blogs is precisely related to the fact that so many bloggers think it’s a waste of time to talk about stuff they don’t like. More specifically, to articulate why something isn’t good, beyond a mere “this sucks” lobbed into a comments box or message board. It’s not a waste of time, particularly if you value the fact that people are regularly reading your blog. Dislikes give shape to likes. The fact that someone might be able to explain why they think one artist is shit might add weight to an argument for another artist’s strengths. I’m not saying you have to get into compare-and-contrast lists, but regular readers will grow to know and trust your tastes.

Oh and the whole thing about text-heavy bloggers being largely professional critics - Personally I’m an exception to that idea, and I know there are plenty of other exceptions as well. Again it just goes to this whole idea of people not wanting blogging to be “a waste of time” - as if one can’t write seriously about music for fun, sans paycheck. That is the hobby! Putting an mp3 online is not a hobby, it’s an impulse.

This is an interesting point - dislikes do throw your likes into relief. Perhaps to clarify my "waste of time" comment, I could argue that posting MP3s of music you hate seems counterintuitive ("Please take the time to download and listen to this song that I just provided a solid argument against listening to"). I'll be looking into the significance of MP3s as a medium later in this post. However, just as I can't assume that everyone writes positively about music (which I don't), no one else can assume that bloggers should write some negative reviews, or in fact, that they all do. I've come across many blogs who do either or both, showing that time and time again, MP3 blogs cannot be lumped together into one general genre of media. It's pretty much impossible to make any generalizing statement at all - the same blog can be different things between different posts. Like this blogger from incidentals and accidentals says, there are too many exceptions. There is also an implication in this blogger's argument that a certain type of MP3 blog is more valuable and "truer" to the genre than others, these "others" being those who just post MP3s rather than write text-heavy opinions or criticism; that those who just post MP3s are less thoughtful, less perceptive, and somehow acting on a lower, more instinctual level than one of higher, intellectual deliberation. This implication points once again to purpose, which I will get to shortly.

I also had a couple of interesting comments left on the post itself, one of which provided a link to Nevver, an MP3 blog which just posts photos and MP3s without any text, implying rather than explicitly stating connections between the two forms of art. This example takes MP3 blogs to their extreme conclusion, where words are no longer necessary. Another comment was also very helpful in that it drew a line between MP3 blogs being the new radio whilst music blogs are discussion and opinion, comparing MP3 bloggers to DJs. Together, these comments really got me thinking about why people create and maintain MP3 blogs, and the connection between how they do it and why they do it.

Now, after sorting out some rather ridiculous Kenneth Burke Dramatistic ratios about MP3 blog rhetoric, I learned a few things. The most significant one is that MP3 blogs are in no way a cohesive body with the same purposes; these purposes, however, do vary depending on which media the MP3 blogger favours to remediate, in other words, the agency he/she utilizes to convey his/her purpose and act. But how does the purpose affect the choice of agency? Or is it the other way around with the agency affecting the purpose, and then the act itself? I'm inclined to believe and argue the latter.

Let me track back a bit to remediation, which is how a medium re-uses and re-interprets a different medium. Remediation can work backwards and forwards, meaning that television is a remediation of film, which came before it, but it can also increasingly be seen in terms of interactivity, as a remediation of the Internet, which came after television. I see MP3 blogs as a remediation of the diary, music journalism/criticism, fanzine, pirate/alternative radio, and mixtape. These are the media, with their attendant purposes, that shape the purposes of MP3 blogs.

The diary element of MP3 blogs affects the purpose by making it personal and reinforcing the affective relationship between the blogger and the music he/she is writing about. This diary remediation shifts commentary into a subjective rather than objective direction, and serves to highlight the newer development of blurring between public and private, which combines self-disclosure with self-promotion. The self-promotion characteristic innate in blogs, evidenced by site traffic meters and inclusion on aggregators, is one that can gain a lot of criticism, especially when traffic and attention becomes the primary motive; however, this attitude presupposes that MP3 blogs as a genre should be something purer of motive, where only the music matters, which is an assumption that ignores the inherent and inherited diary element remediated in the blog medium. Even if one doesn't believe they're promoting him/herself along with the music featured, the very fact the blog is made public and that there is the concern for appearing trustworthy and credible, including having enough subcultural capital, makes the MP3 blog a site of self-promotion.

The music journalism/criticism remediation is one on which those who believe in an MP3 blog revolution would depend. With the access that the Internet brings, amateur writers can research and publish their own pieces about music. It is too simple to say that MP3 blogs have replaced or will replace traditional music journalism, and the fact this remediation is also bound up with public relations/promotional remediation and self-promotion makes it less clear-cut a substitution. The fanzine remediation is connected to the rather positive impulse of celebrating and promoting music that one loves, which I mentioned in the earlier post, and to a more subcultural purpose, supposedly working against and in spite of the mainstream media, promoting artists who don't get promotion through mainstream channels. However, it is also too simplistic to think that MP3 blogs are actually sticking it to the man, even if their rhetoric says they are. The symbiosis of mainstream media and subcultural media is too much a part of subculture as a concept for MP3 blogs to exist in an alternative vacuum, shunning all mainstream media. Even in defining oneself against mainstream media (ie: criticizing NME in a post), one uses and depends on the mainstream for identity and position.

The remediation of the aural media of radio and mixtape is very signficant in that it brings collection, selection, and organization into the foreground of MP3 blog purpose rather than commentary and opinion. Like DJs and mixtape makers, MP3 bloggers attribute meaning to which music they collect and then to how they present it, often without text. While the radio remediation allows for brief background and commentary about tracks (as opposed to lengthy criticism and commentary), the mixtape remediation actually offers music to blog vistors like a word-of-mouth gift - the receiver not only gets to listen to it, but gets to keep it. The mixtape remediation is pervasive in both MP3 blog content and the musical end of the Internet, including sites like Muxtape and technology like Mixas, emphasizing the fanatical impulse for collection, selection, and arrangement along with love and passion for music as motive. Ultimately, MP3 blogs are a bricolage of media that came before them, making them rather slippery to define as a genre.

While it becomes difficult to classify MP3 blogs as a genre based on purpose, the one aspect that does hold the genre together is the MP3s themselves. Regularly posting MP3s on your blog simply makes your blog an MP3 blog. MP3s themselves are fundamental to the medium of MP3 blogs. To get all McLuhan on you, "the medium is the message," and in this case, the MP3 is largely the message. In the Burkean sense, if every selection of reality is both a reflection and a deflection, making most statements, textual or not, rhetorical and/or persuasive, then the mere selection that MP3 blogs employ by choosing the MP3s they feature for download automatically deflects other choices, implying preference and value to music without having to explicitly state anything negative. Or positive. Or to state anything at all. The very act of selection is persuasive, and is made even more salient by the fact MP3 files are included. In this way, MP3s speak and argue for themselves just as other non-verbal elements like images can. Furthermore, blogs, which are of course actually "web logs," have an inherent filter/selection function in which hyperlinks act as both evidence and a record of "pre-surfed" and pre-approved information. Rather than convince by authority and "unquestionable" sources alone, which journalists and critics depend on, bloggers convince by providing a way for their readers to participate in the information they consume, assuming a more active role. With this in mind, MP3s are the primary links provided in MP3 blogs, providing support for the blogger's claims, and their very existence argues for pre-approved content.

Ultimately, MP3 blog influence is far less than many bloggers would believe it is or like it to be. While aggregators like The Hype Machine and Elbows do collect and reify disparate blogs, giving the impression of power and solidarity, they do not set the agendas as much as they would imply. For the most part, the most popular MP3 blogs are reactive rather than proactive in music selection. Unless more bloggers actually exclusively search out new, mostly unsigned, artists and collectively promote them to the point they "break" into the consciousness of those outside of the music blogosphere, they cannot be said to have all that much power to change the system already in place.

We cannot herald the MP3 blog as the substitute for music journalism/criticism, nor for radio, because in remediation, it is much more and much less depending on which aspects are focused upon. For as many people as have access to the Internet there are as many opinions, especially about what MP3 blogs should be, and more importantly, what they should do. I fully acknowledge this plurality, and whether bloggers use MP3 blogs to criticize, to promote, to share, or to express themselves, they are collectively an organism still growing and changing. And since the Internet is a fickle medium, turning attention into one of the rarest commodities, all MP3 bloggers can hope for is their slice of a fragmented, but loyal audience that believes in the purpose presented. Whatever purpose that may be. I, for one, am still thinking about it.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Always Colourful: Pop Levi's Never Never Love


I really love Pop Levi. He's like some psychedelic prophet who lives on the same beach as the Walrus and the Carpenter. I've been a fan of him ever since I first heard the former Ladytron-bassist's album The Return to Form Black Magick Party last year. Songs like Sugar Assault Me Now and Pick-Me-Up Uppercut managed to blend old styles into something psychotically modern, Levi's voice straddling the line between child-like coos and glam exaggeration - listening to Pop Levi is like watching one of those old film strips where the action is sped up to double-time while Marc Bolan bleats over Bollywood music through a gramophone. Pop Levi's latest album, Never Never Love, is going to be released in roughly a month, and I'm happy to report it still blends off-kilter rhythms with Levi's distinctive voice and simple, but esoteric lyrics. And it makes me hear a rainbow of sound.

Opening track, Wannamama, is very old-style rock 'n roll/rockabilly as Levi croons "I wanna mama," a Ballroom Blitz for the Noughties. The "break break" refrain from Pick-Me-Up Uppercut makes another appearance in this song, giving this track an even more solid place next to the bouncier fare on this last album. Title track, Never Never Love, has a fantastic syncopated rhythm that could be Middle Eastern cha-cha while some electronic elements buzz and whizz through the stripped-down beat - grimier latin ballroom where the dancers spin and shake on vermillion dancefloors. The following track, Dita Dimoné, which has already been released as a single, continues with some bare-bones drums, but then electronic fuzz, handclaps, and funky guitar turns it into something quite different, but no less danceable. Semi-Babe takes the album into a different breezier, acoustic direction, which bubbles, pulses and floats like a magenta lava lamp sat at the fulcrum of a lime-coloured teeter-totter. Fire On Your Feet struts to a funky beat, soulful, but sometimes loses its cool and has mini freak-outs with drum fills and speed changes. The cleverly titled Mai's Space is an electro-inflected reggae number, highlighting the highest, dog whistle-pitched register for Levi's voice as he provides his own 60's girl group chorus.

Like Semi-Babe, You Don't Gotta Run is slower and lighter with a summery West Coast feel, floating with hazy, turquoise anticipation like a surfer drifting along waiting for the next wave. Oh God (What Can I Do?) is yet more upbeat pop while Levi pouts and preens, and Everything & Finally is a low-key electronic tune while Levi shimmies and grunts his way through like Prince grooving away on a purple trampoline. Love You Straight is a song full of self-assured love-making promises to laidback psychedelic beats bathed in a mellow yellow sunshine that recalls a little bit of Gruff Rhys. Call the Operator takes yet another turn with a folkier tone mixed with tropical leanings, which ends with quite adept playing of a touch-tone phone. Calling Me Down slows the album down even further with a piano ballad, and the album ends with Fountain of Lies, a track with a string introduction before hitting a wave of New Wave synths, and while Levi's font might be poisoned with falsehood, this song feels cool and refreshing, an ablution after some of the sweatier numbers.

As a whole, Never Never Love veers from wide-eyed technicolour pop to cheeky soul to grimy funk, and it's all held together by Pop Levi's eccentricity. Pop Levi always paints bold aural colours, and this record takes his sonic palette into new weird and wonderful places.


Never Never Love - Pop Levi

Dita Dimoné - Pop Levi

Everything & Finally - Pop Levi

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #28




I apologize for the absolute shoddiness of this week's mix, which happens to be yet another collection of cover versions. Unfortunately, the fact my 100-page MA thesis was due early this week has eaten up any brain space and time for this entire past week. Last night, as I stared at a waffle and contemplated throwing it across the room, shouting "Look! A luftwaffle!," I realized that I might have been working too hard this past week. Don't be fooled by the time stamp on this post - in reality, I'm posting this thing on Tuesday. The benefit of making a mix of cover versions is it takes slightly less time in terms of selection (as opposed to trying to represent a particular feeling, theme or genre) - it is the lazy person's mixtape.

For now, I leave you with the above video of Indochine's cover of Dead or Alive's You Spin Me Round (I find this song even more amusing in the distinctly French accent - and on a slightly more random tangent, I really wish Pete Burns hadn't messed with his face, making a pretty man a distinctly frightening woman - and on an even more random tangent, I wonder if Pete Burns and Morrissey are still friends). Incidentally, I found out about this cover at Coast to Coast. I promise that next week will be a more thoughtful mix, and hopefully, I can catch up and write an extra post this week to make up for last week's slim pickings.

This mix is still pretty good considering the fact it includes the absolutely chilling cover of REM's Everybody Hurts by Bodies of Water, the eeriness of Einsturzende Neubauten's cover of Lee Hazlewood's Sand, and the delicate beauty of Bat for Lashes recent cover of The Cure's A Forest. And because there's always that chance I will squeeze in some sort of music from the best film in the world, Labyrinth, there's a rather bizarre cover of one of Bowie's Muppet masterpieces in there as well. I'll call this mix Luftwaffle.

Does Your Mother Know - Ash (Original: ABBA)

Ballroom Blitz - The Damned (Original: Sweet)

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Devo (Original: The Rolling Stones)

All the Young Dudes - The Skids (Original: Mott the Hoople/David Bowie)

Magic Dance - Kelley Polar (Original: David Bowie/various goblin muppets)

Heaven - Lorraine (Original: Psychedelic Furs)

Love is the Drug - Kylie Minogue (Original: Roxy Music)

1234 - Bikini (Original: Feist)

The Boys Are Back in Town - The Cardigans (Original: Thin Lizzy)

The Man Who Sold the World - Ed Kuepper (Original: David Bowie)

Zombie - Ephraim Uzomechina Nzeka (Original: Fela Kuti)

She's Lost Control - The Raveonettes (Original: Joy Division)

Sand - Einsturzende Neubauten (Original: Lee Hazlewood)

Drive - The Veils (Original: REM)

Crown of Love - This Is Ivy League (Original: Arcade Fire)

Everybody Hurts - Bodies of Water (Original: REM)

Late Night - This Mortal Coil (Original: Syd Barrett)

A Forest - Bat For Lashes (Original: The Cure)

All Cats Are Grey - Band in Box (Original: The Cure)