“And So We Return And Begin Again”

Those are the first words of the first page of the first issue of The Invisibles. It certainly suggests that Grant Morrison built The Invisibles to be a work that would only gain from repeated readings, that the whole series was stuctured so that the ending segues nicely into beginning, like a moebius strip in story form. The first storyline reads so much differently now than when I read it as a teenager, when it was originally published. Now that I understand the significance of all of the minor characters, the tossed off references, the themes and motifs that would become more significant and pronounced later on, it’s obvious to me how rich and well thought out it all is. It’s a very solid start, I remember loving the first storyline then, and it has aged very well. Being a bit older and more well-read certainly has helped improve my enjoyment of it all, no doubt.

By the way, there’s no way I’m doing this in one week. I’m too busy this week, I’m lucky if I get through Apocalipstick by Sunday at this rate. It’s no big deal, though.

Notes:

* Steve Yeowell is tremendously underrated. His illustration style is very pleasing, all soft lines and just the right amount of detail. He’s very natural and fluid, and has a knack for storytelling and capturing body language. I’m particularly fond of the way he draws buildings and cars. I’m not sure if there may be any subtext in it, but there are a lot of grid designs throughout Down And Out In Heaven And Hell – brick walls, pavement, skyscrapers. There seems to be a real emphasis on it, at least in terms of design. It’s effective – by the time we get to the scene with Dane playing frisbee with Tom in the meadow, the sense of open space is palpable, I can almost taste the clean fresh air and the diminished tension between the characters.

* The scenes with Dane at school with the man who we later find out is Mr. Six are very well done. It reminds me of a low budget tv movie, sort of. In a good way. Mr. Six looks like an aging 60s relic in the worst way, contrasting nicely with the flashy, glamorous 60s relic that we see later on in the series. At this point in the series he’s pretty much the archtype of the ‘concerned teacher who wants to help’, who is essentially a good guy in spite of thinking the only answer to Dane’s problems is for him to straighten up and work within the system. He’s the kind of person who doesn’t want to admit to himself that he too shares Mr. Gelt’s ideas about conformity and structure, as outlined in Gelt’s speach upon Dane’s arrival at Harmony House. I like Mr. Six a lot, he’s a very likeable character, especially later on.

* The scene with John Lennon and Stu Sutcliffe in Liverpool is very enjoyable and funny, and one of the few places I’ve ever seen Sutcliffe shown as a down to earth guy who made a wise decision by not staying with the Beatles. When Lennon appears as King Mob’s godhead later on, it is mostly lost on me – it’s a graphically beautiful scene, and I get the Beatles in-jokes, but I’m generally sort of lost on the parts of the series that focus on drugs and/or spirituality. It doesn’t have much resonance for me, really. I suppose I agree with King Mob, though – “I like the idea of a psychedelic god.”

* The scene with the fat, naked Gelt kneeling down to “lick the filth from the fingers” of the Arcon is very disturbing. Yeowell did an especially good job of rendering Gelt. The Arcon looks a lot like a few different creatures from Grant’s Doom Patrol mixed together, though I’m certain that was very intentional.

* Ragged Robin doesn’t seem quite right in series one – it seems that maybe Grant didn’t really know how to write her properly til the second series began, and she became the focus of the second volume. Her ‘voice’ seem all wrong to me. Maybe I’m just missing or forgetting something…

Invisible College Homework

I’ve decided to do a little project this week…I’m going to re-read the entire Invisibles series in sequential order, and I’ll be logging my thoughts and observations here as I go along. I’ve already started on the first storyline of Series 1, Book 1 (Say You Want A Revolution), “Down And Out In Heaven And Hell”. I’m very fond of that story, but getting through the remainder of volume one might be a bit tough. Nearly all of Apocalipstick has bored the hell out of me each time I’ve gone through it, and even though things pick up a bit in Entropy in the UK, there was a damn good reason why I quit buying the series when it was originally published after the first volume ended. Of course, in retrospect, that was very silly of me – volumes two and three are where the story gets moving, and that’s in no small part due to the replacement of the dull, bland Jill Thompson with the more stylish and technically skilled Phil Jiminez. So… notes on Say You Want A Revolution shall follow shortly. But in the meantime…

Hit Hit New Release Rhyme Rhyme All The Time

U-God “Wildstyle Superfreak”

I have no idea where this song is from. I’m guessing that it is a single. I wouldn’t even have known about it were it not for Nikon Driver’s recommendation. This is damn great, easily the best solo U-God record I’ve heard by quite some distance. As evidenced by his performances on The W and Iron Flag, U-God is the only Wu Clansman who appears to be still working on changing and evolving his style while the rest of them seem to have found their particular niches. U-God’s style is very distinct, he does that…um…thing with his voice, a vocal style which I can at best awkwardly describe as ‘side to side’. He reminds me of a boxer, for some reason – maybe it’s because on one Wu track he convincingly quotes Mohammed Ali’s “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” line, and it’s stuck in my mind. He’s great at just firing off images, he’s more into being rhythmic rather than going for rhymes, and it has a very unique effect that I think people tend to underrate and/or overlook. It’s understandable, lord knows I tended to tune him out while paying more attention to Ghostface, Method Man, GZA, RZA, and Raekwon in the past.

As for the song – the beat is very strong, I’m especially fond of the bongos and the occasional isolated piano chord and bass note that recur in the track. U-God’s creepy repeated whispering of the word “freak” over the chorus is a nice touch, and his guest MCs, none of which I can positively ID though one sounds a lot like Inspectah Deck though I’m not confident about it. Click here for an audio clip of the song. It’s too bad this track wasn’t saved for the next full Wu album, all told. This song is too good to be obscure.

Es precioso, es melancólico, es genuino.

Wednesday’s Beck post, en espanol, courtesy of Miguel.

All I Know Is I Got No Money, And That’s Got Something To Do With A Good Time

I will rationalize paying the frankly ridiculous Ticketmaster service fee that I paid on top of the cost of my Sonic Youth ticket this way: when I saw them over the summer, it was for free and it was wonderful. It was one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time. This charge in some way retroactively pays for that show. Of course, I’m just deluding myself. I guess maybe I can just think of the fact that surely Ticketmaster has some nice person working for them who really needs cash, they’re working hard to support their family. I can imagine that money going to them. It’s just as well. I’m very excited to be seeing Sonic Youth again. I’ve even marked my calendar, geek that I am. I hope they play “Skip Tracer” this time around. Or “Expressway To Yr Skull”. Or “Silver Rocket”. I’m seeing the first of two shows at Irving Plaza, so knowing my usual luck, I can expect to see those songs in the setlist for the second night, right? Again, it’s just as well.

Feel The Wrath Of His Bombast

Yeah, Mark. It’s a real SHOCK that Paul Levitz wouldn’t answer those questions. When I think of the name Millar henceforth, surely the first thing that shall spring to mind is ‘tact’. And definitely not ‘self-serving’.

Three People Asking Doesn’t Make It ‘Popular Demand’, But Let’s Do It Anyway…

Here’s some recommended songs to download, with no explanations.

John Cale “Hello, There”

Soft Cell “Tainted Dub” (Be careful – there’s another version out there that’s lame techno. You want the dub version of the hit “Tainted Love”. You can listen to real audio of this version here, thanks to WFMU’s Advanced D&D program.)

The Kills “Wait”

Lou Reed “Andy’s Chest”

Bjork “Possibly Maybe” (acoustic string version from the new Family Tree box set)

Polvo “Lazy Comet”

Har Mar Superstar “Cry 4 Help”

Erick Sermon and Redman “React”

Jay-Z and Beyonce Knowles “’03 Bonnie and Clyde”

Boredoms “7”

We Don’t Have To Talk At All

I’m listening to a recording of Beck playing “Ramshackle” live on the television program Sessions At West 54th back when he was touring for Odelay. It reminds me that yes, I don’t have a problem with Beck’s folky side, that’s not my problem with Sea Change. Even more so than on Odelay, this version of “Ramshackle” has this lovely grace to it, and doesn’t chuck melody out of the equation when acoustic guitars and naked emotion are two major components of the song. It’s gorgeous, it’s melancholy, it’s geniune. It’s one of his finest tunes.

I’ve been checking here and there to make sure that my judgement of Sea Change is accurate, and it seems that the more I hear the record, the more I dislike it. “Paper Tiger” is a keeper, but when compared to even the mediocre cuts on Odelay and Midnite Vultures, it just doesn’t hold up no matter how pretty the string section is. I can’t recall where I read it, but Beck said something recently to the effect of that he has more upbeat material recorded and stockpiled, but he’s not sure when to release it, or if that sort of thing is still ‘relevant’. Revelant. Bah. As if it really matters all that much whether or not something is part of some imagined zeitgeist. As if only acoustic-leaning music can side-step that and be timeless by default. Please, Mr. Hansen: melodic, catchy songs are ALWAYS worthwhile. Boring, self-indulgent dirges seldom are. Please, please, please – if you’ve got some catchy songs, please give them to us, regardless of what critics might think. I’m taking a hardline stance on this issue: big pop ironic showman Beck is the best Beck. Bring him back to us.

“Sorry. I Intend On Getting Drunk And Writing Impenetrable Prose.”

Myles from X-Statix is probably my favorite character in comics currently being published. Well, it’s either him, or Henry McCoy from New X-Men, who like Myles is a furry animal man, an insecure intellectual who may or may not be gay, and severely depressed. The best scene of last week’s X-Statix #3 was the one in which a miserable, drunken Myles stumbles through his library, contemplating whether or not his love for Phat is genuine or truly a cynical ploy for attention. He tries to rationalize it – are he and Billy Bob in a state of “gay-slash-not-gay”, like “multi-sexual cats in Schrodinger’s box?” He thinks about how his teammates are in similarly contrived conflicts with one another, and begins to wonder if they are subconciously allowing themselves to sacrifice their free will and go along with these scripted conflicts to keep things interesting. After all, as Tike declares later on in the issue, they aren’t real superheroes. They’re entertainers. So, are they being scripted, like entertainers? Is it all just Doop playing the puppet master? Yes. Of course. But then what? How do reality tv people adjust when the edited-for-broadcast, engineered-for-conflict semi-fictional parts of their lives end, the season’s over, and they have to go back to being regular people again? Is it as simple as riding that fame out, milking it like Tike and Dead Girl? Do you try to go home again after becoming someone else, like Billy Bob? Do you try to prove yourself like Guy, to try to regain self-respect? It’s all a bunch of question marks at this point in the series, and it seems unlikely that Peter Milligan will try to answer any of them, but rather to just pile up more questions for his audience to ponder. X-Statix is quality stuff. You should read it.

Kicking, Squeeling, Scenester Little Piggy

Ugh. It’s been a while since I’ve read such an utterly contemptable quote that isn’t attributed to a member of the Bush administration.

From New York Metro:

“Brooklyn is a gold mine,” declares helium-voiced club promoter Larry Tee while standing in a studio apartment in the East Village, preparing protégée Melissa Burns for a recording session with her group W.I.T. (Whatever It Takes).

“Have you seen the crowds out there? They’re hot, sexy, fuckable. My God, Manhattan has the ugliest crowds I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s like now bridge and tunnel goes the other way. Manhattan keeps the trash out of my parties.”

What a loathsome, shallow bastard.

Emotions Run Deep As Oceans Exploding

Boom Selection is currently hosting the best new bootleg mix I’ve heard in a few months – a thrashing rock version of Eminem’s “Cleaning Out My Closet”. Hats off to Jack Knife Lee, the remixer, who has accomplished the best you can want from a bootleg version – he’s improved the original by stripping out Dr. Dre’s godawful music and giving the lyrics a much more appropriate accompaniment. The chorus, which sounds limp and mawkish in the original, now sounds as venomous as it clearly should. Of course, making superior bootleg mixes from Eminem tracks is a little too easy since just about anything is an improvement over what Dre puts behind the poor guy. If Eminem should be mad about anything, he should be mad at Dre for making his music sound so damn weak and flimsy.

I Am Overwhelmed. And Ecstatic.

Today is a good day. I’ve recieved a cd-r with many, many hours of old radio broadcasts, including several hours of Bob Lassiter airchecks. It’s amazing, and I’m extremely grateful to the guy who sent it to me. I’ve got the Kennedy/Nixon debate, NYC radio coverage of Hurricane Gloria back in ’85, Neil Rogers airchecks, Art Bell ‘quitting’ radio, several Jean Shephard broadcasts, plus a bunch of bits that I don’t know anything about at all. I’ve got a lot to listen to. This is just fantastic.

The Hurricane Gloria broadcasts are a lot more compelling than you might think – it’s very urgent, it sounds a lot more dangerous and horrible than I remember when I was a kid, but then again, I grew up in the Hudson Valley and not on Long Island. It’s not just hurricane coverage – it includes a lot of news, ie Reagan in peace talks with Russia, lots of advertisements, and general newsradio things. Very cool stuff.

When Your Spirit’s On Trial, These Nights Can Be Frightening

I found the Lee Ranaldo cover “Isolation” on Soulseek, after waiting quite a while for someone to show up with it. This is probably the best vocal performance I’ve heard by Lee, and I already quite like his voice. For those who haven’t heard it, it’s a very faithful version of the song, save for some noise and feedback here and there. It’s just beautiful, and in a time when nothing sounds quite right to my ears, it works for me. It fits just right. I dug up my copy of Plastic Ono Band, and that record is working for me as well. There’s some other things that have been alright for me the past few days – I know I’m going to make some people wince by mentioning that Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellowbrick Road” and a couple Coldplay songs (“Clocks” and “Politik”) are among them. Those two Coldplay songs are very impressive – I never had much time for them before I heard those two songs. Solid stuff, very surprising considering how bland their previous album was, save for the big hit “Yellow”, which I like well enough. I listened to Morrissey’s “The Teachers Are Afraid of the Pupils” on repeat earlier today, and that fit my mood alright. I’m always amazed by the fact that that song has never been a particularly popular Morrissey/Smiths song. It’s my favorite song the man has ever sung.

Stuck In Isolation…

I promised that I would post every day this week, but I really have very little to say today without going into personal things. I haven’t been listening to as much music, because nothing quite sounds quite right lately. I mostly spend free time listening to old episodes of This American Life, and that seems to make me more happy than just about anything else.

Actually, I did find a really great song today – via Scott Williams’ show on WFMU, I heard a fantastic cover of John Lennon’s “Isolation” by Lee Ranaldo. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been easy finding it on SoulSeek…

How Often Do You See A Hundred-Foot Tall Robot Having A Crisis Of Confidence?

Haus has written the most interesting thing I’ve ever read on the topic of the Transformers. This was originally part of his “Barbe-interview” thread on Barbelith. This is the closest I’ve come to having even the slightest bit of interest in this topic since I was about nine years old.

Also:

Has Jody Beth Rosen cracked the Mixerman code? It seems that way to me.

I’m Turning Into The Frank Quitely of Blogging…

…and so I’m going to challenge myself to post something five consecutive days this week. Starting tomorrow. I’m at a loss right now.

I’ll Try The Things You’ll Never Try

Thank you to Todd for pointing me in the direction of Nickel Creek’s version of Pavement’s “Spit On A Stranger”. It’s a super-glossy pop-bluegrass hybrid, and I like it a lot. I think the squeeky-clean sound really suits the song, I like how they’ve made it so cutesy and square. The harmonies sound lovely, and I like the strangely inhibited distortion towards the end, and how the lead singer really goes for those high notes where SM would just deliberately flatten them out. This is probably my favorite Pavement cover (and I’ve heard a lot of them), because it is the first one I’ve heard that really seems like a tribute to Stephen Malkmus’ incredible gift for pop songcraft and adds something to the song that wasn’t already there. I hope this becomes a hit for Nickel Creek, because this song really deserves to be a hit, and because Malkmus deserves those fat royalty checks.

Happy Birthday, Russ

Exactly what it says above: Happy birthday, Russ.

How I Learned To Like “Mr. Mob Boss”

Last night, I could barely contain my malicious glee when I saw that with the exception of a few technical awards, Six Feet Under had been shut out of every major award at the Emmy’s. I utterly loathe Six Feet Under, and it felt like some kind of righteous victory for me to see them lose, as silly as that sounds.

It’s not just Six Feet Under, really. I’ve got a problem with HBO. I think it’s mostly an irrational thing, it mostly has to do with the fact that I can’t shake off my impression that HBO’s original programming is essentially custom tailored television for yuppies and marketed entirely on snob appeal. I resent that so many people just go along with HBO’s ad copy, that what they are doing is Quality Television, so unlike the offerings of network and basic cable television. They market television shows to those effete people who are embarassed to admit that they own a tv set, and a little over a decade ago would be asserting in conversation that they only watch PBS.

When it comes to HBO’s line up, I’m amazed that the channel can sell itself so well on the platform of Quality Television when virtually everything it airs besides sporting events and the odd original movie is either totally irredeemable crap (Arliss, The Mind of the Married Man, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Six Feet Under), snobbed-up versions of the same old stuff you’d see on the networks (The Wire, Sex And The City), or exploitative sleaze (Taxi Cab Confessions, G-String Divas, Real Sex). What HBO has going for it, the way I see it, is Oz and The Sopranos. Both of these are shows that I’ve seen here and there and appreciated, but could not get into at all. This is in no small part due to the fact that I’ve never been the type to really enjoy prison movies or the gangster genre in general. I have nothing bad to say about either program, besides the way HBO markets them – something that can hardly be pinned on the makers of those programs, obviously.

I’ve seen more episodes of the Sopranos than Oz – from what I’ve seen, I certainly enjoy it more. Even when I was just watching it because it was late at night and nothing else was on, and couldn’t quite follow the storyline, I could not help but like the way the show is presented. There’s a very strong (but not overpowering) sense of aesthetic to the program, there’s no question that even in watching a quick scene without any famous actors in it, you are watching the Sopranos. I appreciate that. More than that, the man who plays Tony Soprano, James Gandolfini, is an unimpeachably great actor with a powerful charisma. I can’t imagine that this show would be nearly as successful without him.

Last night was the big turning point for me – I watched the brand new episode of the Sopranos, and for the first time, I cared. Finally, after just occasionally catching a bit here or there and nodding with vague approval, they sucked me in. I’m not sure what it was about the episode that did it for me, but I know that the subplot with the FBI undercover agent who has managed to infiltrate Tony’s Family, and the deep feelings of confusion and betrayal of the woman she used to sneak her way in was probably the clincher. The storyline with Tony’s troubled daughter trying to convince her parents to let her go away to Europe, her awful confrontation with Tony, and his subsequent complicated and nuanced reaction to her cursing him out as “Mr. Mob Boss” went a long way in convincing me too. Now I’ve got to know what will happen next. Now I’ve got to catch up on the earlier seasons. I’m a convert. Simple as that.

I’m Not Sure Who’s Fooling Who Here As I’m Watching Your Decay

The good news: the six new Tori Amos songs that have been leaked prior to the release of Scarlet’s Walk in late October are a very pleasant surprise. They are all solid songs, and quite a lot better than her past few albums, with the exception of “The Glory Of The 80s” and “Suede” from the otherwise dire To Venus And Back. The best of these six songs, “Amber Waves” and “Pancake”, are pretty damn wonderful, as good as her best material. The songs are organic, but she doesn’t compromise her flirtations with electronic keyboards on the past two albums to return to the straight piano formula that suited her much better on her first three albums, which is admirable. There’s a nice balance of old Tori and new Tori, which makes up for the painful awkwardness of Strange Little Girls and To Venus And Back. She sounds confident, selfassured.

The bad news: even the best songs are kind of bland. It’s not hard to imagine bits of these songs, particularly “Taxi Ride”, in a WB promo. There’s a slick, sanitary, safe sound on these songs that lack the quirks, bile, wit, and overall personality of her pre-Choirgirl Hotel albums. The musical difference between Amos’ recent work and her mainstream pop impersonators, most notably Vanessa Carlton, is becoming harder to notice. That’s not entirely fair to Tori – Carlton is so calculated, banal, and hamfisted that I realize that it is more than a little insulting for me to compare Amos’ obviously mature craft to Carlton’s recent schlock-pop hits. Still, I do think to the layperson, the most notable difference between the two is 2002 model Tori’s refusal to go for the bombastic big money choruses that Carlton embraces. Though I think that Amos’ tasteful restraint is greatly preferable, it’s just a bit too much on these songs. I know that this is a woman who has a lot better to offer the world than just pleasant, inoffensive, vaguely cool adult-contemporary background music for vegetarian cafes.

More good news: one of my favorite Barbelith posters, Moriarty, has decided to write a weekly blog about comics and animation called Flat Earth. He’s already got a few entries up, and it’s looking pretty good so far. Check him out.

I’ll Tell You What The 80’s Like

It’s sort of frustrating right now for me, because I’ve stumbled upon a lot of songs this week that I like a lot, but I really have nothing to say about them other than “they’re really good and they make me happy”. “Young Boy” by Clipse (w/ The Neptunes) is full of joy and swagger. It’s sort of self-explanatory. “I Can’t Wait” by Jaguar Wright and Bilal is one of the more creative and inspired Prince impressions that I’ve heard in a long while. I said a few weeks back that I was surprised that so few people imitate Prince songs like “Forever In My Life” and “The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker”, and this song successfully pulls that off. “Good Times” by Styles is a lot like the best bits of Jay-Z’s The Blueprint album musically, even though the MCs on the track aren’t nearly as talented as Jay Hov.

Still, “Hey Ma” by Cam’ron is the song that is making me the most happy this week. I wish I had more to say about it, something clever, something more convincing than “it makes me happy”. But that’s the truth. Everytime I hear it, I smile.

I Think I’ve Done A Lot For Civil Rights

There’s an interesting and revealing feature about Conan O’Brien in today’s New York Observer. I think it is the first time I’ve ever read anything that gives me a sense of what Conan is like outside of his career. I find myself relating to him a lot. There’s a few good laughs in there, especially the bit about Lyndon Johnson towards the beginning.

Ollie’s Majoring In Neo-Fascism At Columbia

I strongly recommend the film Igby Goes Down . I wish I had something more interesting to say about it right now other than that I really liked it a lot, it’s very witty, and it can’t come out on DVD soon enough so that I can go back and enjoy all of its clever one-liners again. It’s a fine dark comedy, and probably the best new film I’ve seen since The Royal Tenenbaums came out last year. It shares a lot of that film’s Sallinger-derived aesthetic, but unlike The Royal Tenenbaums, its characters are entirely unsympathetic bastards through and through, and this film’s NYC is very contemporary as opposed to the romantic storybook New York of the Tenenbaums. The cast is excellent, especially Kieran Culkin as the title character, Ryan Phillipe as his drole older brother Oliver, and Jeff Goldblum as Igby’s godfather D.H. I’m looking foward to seeing this film again.

I’m Tired And Distracted

There are a lot of things that I’d like to mention on this blog, but thanks to a pretty bad case of blogger’s block, I really can’t think of any good way to write about them. Trust me, Igby Goes Down deserves a far better write up than the one I gave it. I tried. I’m not feeling well. Anyway, here’s some things I’d want to talk about, and hopefully will elaborate on later in the week:

I very much enjoyed reading The Bush Dyslexicon by Mark Crispin Miller. I recommend it for anyone with a strong interest in the Bush administration, spin, propaganda, and in sussing out just who George W. Bush really is.

Scarface’s The Fix, Shakedown’s “At Night”, GusGus’s “Unnecessary”, Slum Village’s “Tainted” and especially Cam’Ron’s “Hey Ma” are all albums/songs which have been making me very happy the past few days.

Grant Morrison’s New X-Men #132 was a let down, but #131 was definitely one of the best issues so far. The Frank Quitely-drawn cover to December’s #135 has brought me a lot of child-like joy. It’s probably the single best cover I’ve ever seen on an X-comic, and it has a wonderful Abbey Road quality to it, in that it seems to invite speculation about what’s happening between the characters and what every little gesture and detail might mean. In design terms, it’s great. In terms of draftsmanship, it’s tight. In giving fans something to talk about before the issue hits the stands, it is ahead of its time in embracing the current message board-speculation-on-early-solitations status quo. I’m very excited about this issue, and the four subsequent issues – five straight months of Morrison/Quitely. It’s going to be sweet.

I haven’t enjoyed Morrison’s The Filth nearly as much, but I continue to read it mostly out of a combination of loyalty and curiosity. It’s such a stark contrast with NXM – the characters in the Filth are so dull, drab, lifeless whereas he’s done a wonderful job of making his NXM characters vibrant and complex. The Filth is just so lacking in charisma – four issues in, it still has yet to capture my interest, even with a foul-mouthed Communist commando chimp. I’m hoping there might be a payoff later on, since it is still early on in a 13 issue series.

I recommend reading Russell’s Flaming Lips interview, and the ongoing studio diary of Mixerman, who is an audio engineer working on recording the debut album of an anonymous band with an unnamed major producer. Jody, who introduced me to the Mixerman saga, thinks that it’s probably Rick Rubin, and I’m inclined to agree with her.

I found this to be rather amusing. I found it thanks to The Minor Fall, The Major Lift, which I think is one of the best blogs currently going these days. I’m with the Minor Fall guy, the Guardian article about Morrissey with the baffling assertion that there were “beef-fed cowboys” at a Colorado Morrissey concert ready to storm the stage while he sang “Meat Is Murder” is just ridiculous. It’s also pretty typical of Brit pop journalism, which isn’t to say US journalists are any great shakes either.

“Paid My Dues”? To The Mickey Mouse Club?

Thanks to Luke, for fowarding this explanation, straight from Nelly himself about the double r thing, which found from the Popbitch newsletter:

>> The double rr explanation <<

It is verry simple

Christina Aguilera on the other hand is from

Staten Island, New York. The reason her new

single is called Dirrty is because she’s a

bandwagon-jumping little ex-Mouseketeer wannabe.

I finally got to hear the song – it sounds like Dangerous-era Michael Jackson, which is pretty good, but not particularly amazing. A lot of people are saying that Usher and Justin Timberlake are trying to sound like Michael Jackson, but I think they are just tapping into his spirit, whereas this actually sounds like something he’d actually record. She sings that she’s “sweating til (her) clothes come off”, which is another nod to Nelly’s “Hot In Herre”, but also suggests that she must sweat ALL. THE. TIME. It must have been realllllllly hot at the MTV awards…

Get Your Hair Did

A note to my ILM-posting, indie-loathing, Missy-worshipping readers: I’ve come to like “Work It” more since last week. It doesn’t seem quite so shambling anymore, and it’s got a few pretty funny lyrics in there, too. I can’t really imagine people dancing to this with any kind of grace, it seems more like headphone music to my ears. Not really a problem at all, though.

Plug:

Cameron Stewart, a person I’m very proud to call a friendly acquaintance of mine, has a lovely new website, with lots of nice drawings to see. Go look at it, and make sure you check out the Royal Tenenbaums drawing in the sketchbook section.

A Note To Paul Cox:

I imagine that between 1975 and 1990, there were thousands upon thousands of songs from around the world recorded for 7″ records and self-released cassettes that deserve to be heard by larger audiences for the first time. The real obstacle is the actual collecting of the material. How thrilling it would be to undertake such a task; combing the singles racks of small record stores all around the world hoping to find those special, unheard releases.

Paul, you don’t need to. You should check out Hyped2Death’s compilation series covering obscure DIY from the late 70s-80s. This guy is way ahead of you. I’ve found quite a few great songs from buying a bunch of those Homework compilations, in particular.

Shooby Lives!

This is fantastic – I just read that Shooby Taylor has been found and was recently interviewed by Irwin Chusid and Ken Freedman on WFMU. They broadcasted some of Shooby’s home recordings too, which is pretty neat.

RR

I have no idea why Nelly put the extra “r” in the title “Hot In Herre”, but I’m fairly sure it’s not a bit of slang that had existed before Nelly released that single. I’m on shaky ground, definitely – if someone wants to educate me about this, by all means, email me. Nevertheless, I’m very confident that Christina Aguilera’s new single “Dirrty” is just cashing in on Nelly’s liberal use of the letter, a way of forcing a connection to a great summer hit. It’s not the only recent hit it’s borrowing from, either. Here’s an excerpt from an article about Aguilera in yesterday’s New York Times:

…”Dirrty”, the collaboration with Redman…If It sounds a bit like the recent Redman hit “Let’s Get Dirty (I Can’t Get In Da Club)”, that’s no coincidence. Ms. Aguilera says she called Rockwilder, who produced “Let’s Get Dirty”, and told him how much she liked the beat. “He made me a track that was very similar,” she said. “I almost thought it was too similar.” Then she decided to play up the similarity: she brought in Redman, who delivered a rap that made reference to “Let’s Get Dirty” — he even recreated the ape sounds he had made on the original track.

Sounds very promising, I think – kinda Boom Selection, a litte bit “appropriationist pop”/”plagiarhythm”. The article also solicits Aguilera’s opinion about Freelance Hellraiser’s “Stroke Of Genius”, and she gives the answer that I was hoping that she would give: “I really, really loved it. I thought it was dope. That should’ve been how I came out with it in the first place.”

I’ve been thinking about this a bit more, spurred on by Martin’s comments, particularly “…the grace period a single can go through before its remade just got a whole lot shorter.” I think Martin is on to the real truth of the matter, though I don’t share his feeling that bootlegs/bastard pop/whatever you want to call it is a ‘fading novelty’. Really, if anything, that the turnover rate in which one song can be appropriated and made into another has accelerated and has been embraced by the mainstream record industry suggests that while the underground phase may be ending, the overground pop cultural phase is only beginning.

It’s interesting, and I have no idea what’s going to happen. None of this will be very clear for a long time, anyway. If the crassness of the pop idol machine and the corporate record industry somehow allows some very progressive ideas about artistic appropriation and genre mutation to thrive, I’m okay with that so long as it results in something worthwhile. I’m optimistic.