Conquistadora

La Perdida #2 arrived in the mail today. I had a brief conversation with my friend yesterday about how she doesn’t care for Jessica Abel’s drawing style, that she thinks that her work is boring and ugly to look at. I disagree – I think Abel is an acquired taste, I think that she makes a lot of demands on the reader to pay attention and look at every panel. On a superficial level, her pages are sort of hard to look at – lots of chunky blacks and busy backgrounds, very little in the way of flashiness, a very basic approach to visually structuring pages. If you just skip through an issue of any of her comics, every page looks more or less the same. It’s lazy to write her off this way, it’s the easy way out. Reading through the new issue of La Perdida, I noticed that every panel seems fresh and alive if you only pay attention to that one drawing. Each drawing is very well thought out in graphic terms, her storytelling is wonderful, and her skill with gesture and expression is very well-observed and spot-on.

I do wish she would switch to full color after she finishes La Perdida – the covers for this comic are beautiful, just stunning.

Reading through the issue, I was wondering where the story was going – it seemed a bit aimless, more mundane than the first issue of the series. As I finished the issue, I realized that Abel had done a very good job of setting up and complicating the relationships of the characters, as well as building up tension for the final scene with Memo confronting Carla about how she really feels about being an American in Mexico. Here’s an excerpt from that brilliant scene:

Carla: We should go to Frida (Kahlo)’s house.

Memo: You are such a little bourgeois. You and your Frida…

Carla: How can you say that? She was a Communist!

Memo: With her domestic staff and her elitist ideas.

Carla: She was NOT an elitist! You don’t know anything about her. She died while working on a portrait of Stalin!

Memo: It doesn’t matter anyway…Who cares WHAT she thought, since now she’s basically kitsch. She’s decoration for tourist’s t-shirts; the safe pretty, folkloric Mexican.

Carla: She’s still a symbol of the power of women artists!

Memo: …the power of women artists to be co-opted by the late-capitalist male power structure to sell product and dilute Mexican identity!

Carla: Have you even looked at the poster in my dining room? Come down and look at it… This work is so raw, it’s so strong – it’s not decorative in the least! It’s full of blood and guts.

Memo: That just shows the extent to which the globalizers are able to steamroll over any individuality.

Carla: No, really, Memo. I was in college, studying basically nothing but how to be a good consumer, then in this art history class I studied Frida and suddenly Mexico comes alive for me; I want to know about the Mexican part of myself.

Memo: Because it somehow gives you the illusion that you’re different from your shallow friends?

Carla: I’m serious!

Memo: And so you, what? Decided to work for better conditions in the maquiladoras?

Carla: No, I…

Memo: You started lobbying Congress to end NAFTA?

Carla: Memo…

Memo: You started wearing ridiculous long skirts and braids that made you look Mexican-y. Did you even learn Spanish?

Carla: I tried! And I started paying attention to the news!

Memo: …a bourgeois dilettante in the lovely aesthetics of a Mexico that isn’t now and probably never was.

The conversation doesn’t end there, but this excerpt does. I have a great appreciation for how Abel is able to harshly criticize her main character, Carla, but also be empathetic and understanding of how she feels. There are no flat characters in Abel’s story, no binary morality. Abel seems a lot more interested in raising questions rather than offer any kind of editorializing – I can see where her background in journalism informs her writing. She’s all about reporting the facts, and examining how cultural and economic factors effect ordinary people. La Perdida is really something special – I highly recommend that you all run out and put some cash in Abel’s pockets. She deserves it.

Beg Me To Stay

Yesterday, thanks in part to reading about it on Forgotten NY, I took a walk around the Vinegar Hill area of Brookyln. Vinegar Hill is just beyond the DUMBO neighborhood where I used to live. I’m sure I’m conflating some of it with the Brooklyn Navy Yard disctrict (which is soon to become movie studios, by the way) – I just kept walking along Front Street past York Street. I’d only ever explored this neighborhood a handful of times, and mostly in vain – I never went in so deep as I did yesterday. I found that the further you get into this area, the more surprising it becomes.

It’s filled with decay – old houses, factories, lots, warehouses – everything is in a state of disrepair. There were no shops, but some streets full of very old storefronts which clearly haven’t seen business in several decades. The whole area seems like time had just passed it by, most everything seems out of time and sort of unreal. In contrast with the oldness of everything that is there, a number of different graffiti and printmaking artists have used the area as their personal canvas; so in addition to old, strange and outdated signage, there are cryptic words and images everywhere you look.

Every street seemed to offer up a new surprise – a nearly-demolished warehouse with the words “Beg Me To Stay” spraypainted on a crumbling wall on one street, a lot full of old cars (mostly dating back to the 50s and 60s, in fairly decent condition) on another. One street had the aforementiond storefronts, all buildings dating back to the early 1800’s, many clearly occupied but in terrible condition. One of the strangest finds was a gated white mansion which with a large chunk of the electric plant that dominates the coast of the area located on part of the estate. I have no idea what the story of this mansion is, but I’d really like to find out more about it. This guy seems to be pretty interested in the mansion too. I’ll be going back later in the week to take a few rolls of photographs to keep as a personal record of this strange, spooky area.

Wish Fulfillment

If I was a sick little kid, and I could have a wish granted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation, I would make them have the Neptunes produce a song with this structure: First verse, Stephen Malkmus on vocals. Second verse, Ghostface Killah. Sung chorus by Andre 3000. Third verse, Jay-Z. Chorus by Andre. Fourth verse, Mark E. Smith. Chorus by Andre, with outro vocals by Bob Pollard. And it would be amazing. I’d want the Neptunes to make a track not entirely unlike Mystikal’s “Bouncin’ Back”, but a bit faster and bouncier.

Thanks Yo

Grant from Barbelith sent a reply to Steve Smith from Clearchannel’s letter to Entertainment Weekly last week, and cc’d a copy to Smith himself as well:

Dear editors,

Yours sincerely,

Grant A. Balfour, former radio listener

…and this is the reply from Smith:

From: “Smith, Steven F”

To: “‘grant b, sun reporter ‘”

hahaha, thanks yo. Kinda mis typed that. Sorry

dude.

Did he interpret the email so that he understood Grant’s words to say that ClearChannel’s music programming was “tha shit”, and just mindlessly skimmed through the part where he identifies himself as “Grant A. Balfour, former radio listener“?

Amazing. Corporate jock culture will destroy us all, for real.

Links of Interest:

Nude As The News has an excellent interview with Thurston Moore, in which Moore speaks openly about Sonic Youth’s writing process, record label politics, and ponders how his band could be marketed in today’s music industry.

Phil Jiminez talks about his upcoming work on New X-Men in this Comic Book Resources article.

Guided By Voices have cancelled tomorrow night’s gig at Irving Plaza in NYC. For those keeping score, this is the second time this show has been cancelled/postponed. Poor GBV can’t catch a break lately – first time, Bob injured himself. This time, someone in the band had a death in family. My condolences to whoever it was, and hopefully GBV will be back in NYC soon.

Check out the Spizzazzz blog for a live running commentary on tonight’s Tim Westwood’s Radio One program including myself, Suds, and the folks who run the blog.

Thanks to a tip off from Tom Ewing, I decided to check out “House of Jealous Lovers” by The Rapture. I am very, very impressed with this song – finally, someone manages to do that ‘contemporary Gang Of 4’ thing and gets it right. It blows !!! and Radio 4 out of the water, that’s for sure. The song has an incredibly urgency to it, and the vocals have a very believable (as opposed to affected) sound of panic; but the sampled disco beat is what puts it over the top for me. Top notch stuff – I’ll have to check out more by this band sometime soon. I don’t remember these guys being anywhere near this good when I saw them open for Stephen Malkmus last year. I hope that this is more than just ‘studio magic’…

Also, I should add that I’ve come around to really enjoying El-P’s Fantastic Damage record. It’s just one of those times when I overcome a prejudice for an artist, and I begin to wonder what my problem was in the first place. It’s probably one of the best records I’ve heard this year, very likely the most musically progressive too. It ‘rocks’ very hard, in a dizzy cut-up beats sort of way. It also reminds me of the RZA’s best production work, without being a pale imitation. Those who file share should try out “Deep Space 9mm”, “Tuned Mass Damper”, and “Stepfather Factory”.

It has been two and a half weeks since I bought a comic, about four since I bought one that I enjoyed. I feel like I am in withdrawl, I just haven’t been anywhere near a comics shop. The good news is that a new issue of New X-Men and the first issue of X-Statix will be out on Wednesday, and that my copy of La Perdida #2 by Jessica Abel that I ordered from Fantagraphics should be here any day now…

Excellent news: The Natural Riot, the new record by the Shimmer Kids Underpop Association is out (though I unfortunately haven’t recieved my copy yet), and judging by the two songs streaming in the Kids’ audio section, it sounds like we’re in for another great lo-fi psychedelic pop record. “Burning Bridges” in particular sounds wonderful.

Ierne makes a great point on Barbelith about those who feel The Who are doing the wrong thing by touring despire John Entwistle’s recent death:

To be fair, a band can’t just drop a big tour like that – that’s a lot of people potentially out of work: road crew, tour management staff, lighting & sound engineers, caterers, drivers…the odds of all those people getting booked on another tour that size on such short notice is close to nil.

But I wish Pete would have just said that, instead of getting all pretentious with talk of “big and little people”. He of all people should know that on the road, everyone has an essential part to play and there is no “big” or “little”; one person goes AWOL or doesn’t do their job and the gig’s fucked.

Weezer’s new video for “Keep Fishin'” makes me smile ear-to-ear whenever I see it. It’s so cute, so cuddly, so obviously going to be played on the video channels a billion times over from now til the end of time. I’m glad that they made that video for one of my favorite Weezer songs, too. While yr in the audio/visual section, you should maybe check out the 25 new songs they’ve posted in their mp3 section. Most of them are pretty dull, but “Hey Domingo!”, “Mad Kow”, “Modern Dukes”, “Mo’ Beats”, “The Story Is Wrong”, and “The Organ Player” are pretty decent. Judging by the new songs, it looks like the band is easing up on the rawk, and adding a lot of keyboards – making them sound a bit like the later Superchunk records.

Can anyone tell me where I can find information about Bob Lassiter? Lassiter is/was a talk radio personality who apparently has been on the air in several radio markets throughout the United States. Aircheck has begun to broadcast portions of his show on WFLA in Tampa Bay, and I find that I really like this smug, condescending guy who delights in taking calls from irate listeners who want him to get off the air. I’ve been looking around on Google, but I can’t find much in the way of biographical information, interviews, or broadcast history.

PM

Fitting in rather well with my ranting about professional music critics, Glenn McDonald sums up exactly why personal blogs (and I would think some message boards, as well) are a far better source for music criticism and commentary than most any commercial publication in this interview:

I think if I had my way everybody who writes about music would run their own little sites, and we’d leave the commercial publications to report gossip and tour dates. You have to learn a lot about a reviewer to have any idea how their tastes correlate with yours, and the usual magazine setup is no good for that.

AM

All I can say is that I’m stunned that this woman is a published critic, but I’m not at all shocked that she’s being published by the likes of the Village Voice.

Yes, I am aware of the fact that Ms. Phillips’ review of the Sonic Youth record has more than a passing resemblence to my brief review of the new Oasis record yesterday. The difference: I just put it up on my blog. I would never try to sell something like that. Also, I’m not clinging romantically to my youthful memories of Oasis fandom, if there even were any. This woman is clearly dealing with how she relates to the music and the band, it has nothing to do with critically assessing the music on the record. She’s clinging to what she admits are flawed ideas about what it is to age as an artist. She’s simply far too immature to have her opinions taken seriously, and I think it is offensive that she is being published by a (well, to most people) respectable newspaper.

Let’s be realistic : the Village Voice music editor has an agenda. They could have printed any number of reviews by any number of reviewers who would have written about Murray Street in a positive way, but a) they wanted to be ‘different’ and ‘daring’, so they printed the reactionary review, the review that would stir up the mail sack or b) the editors have a problem with Sonic Youth and commissioned a negative review. Most every other magazine, fanzine and newspaper is printing positive reviews of Murray Street. They wanted to be different, cos they’re the VILLAGE VOICE! They’re rebels!

It bothers me that some people can’t separate their idealized notions of who Sonic Youth (and other bands) are from the actual music, that they refuse to understand the ebb and flow of an artist’s output. I hate that to so many people, growing older as an artist is some kind of crime, and that having a large discography is somehow a drawback. Having a large discography means that you have to think about more things, consider more factors when evaluating an artist. It makes talking about an artist more complicated, so most people just cop out. They automatically sink into the ‘well, most of it is just for the obsessives’ mode of thinking. They simply refuse to examine the big picture of what an artist has created.

How many record reviews have you read with the phrase “a return to form”? Isn’t it funny how every Sonic Youth record, every Pavement/Malkmus record, every GBV/Bob Pollard record, etc almost always contain those words? What is it about record reviewers that makes everyone want to assume that all the records since the big popular canonized album are automatically lousy?

WE PLAY THE HITS

The letter to Entertainment Weekly attributed to the “Image Director” of Clear Channel, Steve Smith, that I found on I Love Music really boils my blood.

Satellite radio is not the answer to good radio, much like cable TV is not the answer to good TV. Both just give you more choices of crap.

Steve Smith

Production Director/Imaging Director, Clear Channel

Steven.Smith@ClearChannel.com

Lebanon, N.H.

The fucking gall of this man is almost unbelievable. His contempt for the common person is staggering. He does little more in this letter than to confirm what most people already assumed about Clear Channel and their ilk: they aren’t just unconcerned with the public good, they have a genuine antipathy for the common person. They do not understand music and art’s place in culture, and are willing to do irreperable damage to American culture if it means creating a higher profit margin.

There are an incredible number of people who hate the way the airwaves have sold out the public interest – I can’t understand why there are so few people willing to do anything about it. It’s very disheartening. Something has got to give. This sort of corporate corruption, and the government which enables it to happen need to be implicated, they need to be punished severely. Still, most people will ignore this sort of corruption because it’s “only the radio”.

THE SUN’S GOING DOWN ON THE DAYS OF YOUR EASY LIFE

I would have liked to have enjoyed at least one of the songs on the new Oasis album. Unlike a lot of other people, I’m not afraid to say that I can think of at least twenty songs by this band that I genuinely enjoy. I even liked a couple of the songs on their last LP, which most anyone can agree was a lifeless dud. I also like about half of the Be Here Now LP, which even the band (clearly their own biggest fans) hates. When I got around to downloading and listening to the 11 new songs, I didn’t feel sad or disappointed – I just felt sorry for Noel, Liam, and company. They sound like a police composite artist’s rendering of what the band might sound like based on descriptions and testimonials of their music taken from negative reviews. Nothing on this album moves me in the slightest – it’s dull, limp, phoned-in. I felt vaguely insulted listening to it.

This is a band which desperately needs to break up before they ruin their legacy entirely. There’s no shame in quitting now, Noel. You’ll do the same sales when you’re solo the way Oasis is going now. Give it up. Have a little dignity, alright?

My hatred for Vice Magazine runs deep and strong. This is but one small example. I don’t care how much money there is in it, no one under an circumstances should write a magazine from the perspective of an opionated know-nothing slumming faux-white trash urban rich kid hipster drowning in a sea of irony and Pabst Blue Ribbon. It’s pure evil.

Earlier this evening, I watched an episode of Musicians on Bravo. The show is meant to be the musical equivalent of James Lipton’s Inside The Actor’s Studio program; but it lacks all of the charms of that show, and magnifies all of its weaknesses. It is hosted by Rolling Stone writer David Wild, who may very well be the ultimate personification of everything which has ever been wrong with Rolling Stone and their brand of music criticism. Wild is a total bore – when he’s not brown-nosing his guests (in this case, Randy Newman) in such a shameless way that it would make even Lipton wince, he’s tossing off lame personal anecdotes about how that guest’s music effected his life. The guy’s taste can best be described as full-on baby boomer whitebread canon-worshipping. He is exactly the kind of guy who really digs Randy Newman, so I don’t for a moment doubt him when he gushes – the same goes for his interviews with Heart and Hall & Oates. Yes, this is a man who takes Hall & Oates seriously.

Watching the show, I was trying to figure out what I think of Randy Newman. I feel confused by it, mostly. I can understand the appeal of his lyrics – they are clever enough, I can certainly see how they appeal to aging boomers of a certain type. His voice is obviously an acquired taste, but something about it strikes me as being ‘wrong’ in a way that I can’t seem to articulate. His piano playing is fairly inconsequential; his melodies are sometimes pretty good, though often it just seems like the melody and musical accompaniment are just something to frame the lyrics. To be less diplomatic – a lot of his songs just sound like he wrote something clever and decided to prop it up with some music. I would appreciate the guy a lot more if he were a poet, or an essayist. Never the less, something about Randy Newman seems off to me. It could be all of the things I mention, it could be something else I can’t quite articulate, it could just be me. I’m sure some people might say I’m just too young to ‘get it’…

Good news: The Warren Ellis Forum is shutting down!. I will not miss the WEF, though I am sure that their fickle, shapeless politics, hollow self-righteousness, and their collective taste in bland comics will find a new home in no time. To say the very least about Warren Ellis, the man has the sense to quit while he’s ahead. Still, shutting the place down now allows him to bask in praise, and spew self-congratulatory rhetoric based only loosely in fact. I maintain that the WEF has done nothing innovative, and has only benefitted from being in a right place/right time position. I think the WEF community only reinforces comic shop culture, and though they would like to think they are raising the bar, they really do little more than to celebrate a horrible status quo. Good riddance.

My love for the Forgotten New York website grows daily, and as a result, my love for the city itself is nearly off the charts. Whether it’s reading up on COST and REVS, the history of Roosevelt Island, the other lesser-known islands around the city, step streets in the Bronx, or the histories of the signage, advertisements, and subways of the city; my love for the place as a whole grows exponentially.

I saw The Polyphonic Spree and The Danielson Famile at the Knitting Factory last night. It was a great show – The Danielson Famile were in good form, with a slightly different instrumental line-up than when I last saw them. They played a fun, improvised set focusing on their singalongs for a very enthusiastic audience. The set included a lot of my favorites, such as “Deeper Than The Gov’t”, “Coolest Lil’ Dragon”, “Don’t You Be The Judge”, “Good News For The Pus Pickers”, “Rallying The Dominoes”, “We Don’t Say Shut Up”, and “Body English” – I’m forgetting one or two from their first LP.

Before the Danielson Famile hit the stage, a new band called Ursa Minor played a brief set of music from the Fiona/Tori/Sarah McLachlan/Aimee Mann school of unthreatening ‘mature songwriting’, augmented by a Huey Lewis-style horn section. They weren’t that bad, but were very bland and forgettable. I couldn’t help but think that Glenn McDonald would have really liked this band.

Since I had to catch the last train out of the city, I could only stay for the first half hour of The Polyphonic Spree’s set; but lucky enough for me, the four songs that I wanted to hear the most were among the first five songs played. Though I did technically get what I came to see, I really wish I could have seen the rest of their set. They are a sight to behold – 23 highly enthusiastic people (including the most rocking french horn player of all time) playing, singing, physically emoting joyous pop music on a small, cramped stage. As much as I like the record, I don’t think that the recording does this band justice.

I picked up the new issue of Stay Free! and Found Magazine, the latter thanks to a tip off from Margin Walker on Barbelith. I’m really loving Found…I’m just sort of puzzled why the magazine version relies on filler like a crap interview with Lynda Barry, and illegal excerpts from the New York Times, The Onion, and a John Steinbeck novel. I would hope that in the future, the magazine dedicates itself entirely to found items and lets the concept of the magazine/website speak for itself. The newest issue of Stay Free is probably my favorite thus far, it is a theme issue about conspiracy theories, and examines the topic from a number of interesting perspectives – I’ll talk about this issue more here or on Barbelith at a later time.

On the way home, I finally got around to listening to The Breeder’s Title TK in its entirety and in its intended sequence (well, actually I listened to “London Song” twice over, so maybe not). I can understand why some Breeders fans are let down by this record, but I like it. Having never been anything more than a casual fan of Kim Deal, I don’t have any great expectations for her or her bands. As of this writing, I’m fairly convinced that Title TK is the most consistent non-Pixies record she’s ever been involved in creating. Don’t get me wrong – I really love a lot of older Breeders/Amps songs, it’s just that the records have always struck me as terribly uneven. I think that it would be easy for someone to get an impression of unevenness from a casual listen to this new album (I know I did at first), but when listening to the record last night, completely exhausted, it seemed to make a lot more sense.

Every song on the record sounds like it is in a drunken/stoned stupor, some songs having a better composure than others. “London Song” is definitely my favorite song on this album, I can’t help but love how wobbly and dizzy the song feels with it’s awkward stops and starts, it’s sweet melodic refrains, and its confused, incoherant lyrics. “I’m leaking pure white noise.” “There’s something to believe.” “I thought I’d know better.” “Misery’s fun, I’m kissing everyone. I’ve got to hold my tongue.” Most of the lyrics on this album come off as quietly mumbled nonsequitors, the half-formed ideas of someone who is stumbling around after partying way too hard, Andrew WK-style. Like I said, the whole album feels this way, like it’s either sloppy-lampshade-on-head-screaming-“wooooo!” drunk (“Huffer”, “London Song”, “Little Fury” “Full On Idle”), or about to pass out (“Off You”, “Forced To Drive”, “Put On A Side”). It’s not hard to imagine that this is what it feels like to be a Deal sister given their respective biographies. All in all, it’s a good, weird little record; and certainly a lot more interesting than most people are giving it credit for being.

Delayed Reaction

Last week the United States Copyright Office announced new performance royalties for all US webcasters, a move which will price out nearly every noncorporate webcasting concern in the country save for a few exceptions, such as WFMU, who will be financially damaged but not ruined by these new laws.

This is a major blow to those who love diversity and autonomy in broadcasting, and a major victory for corporate interests who seek to control and wipe out all competition in internet broadcasting, something which most logically belongs in the hands of the people. For more information, go here and here. For a real audio archive of WFMU program director Ken Freedman’s on-air discussion of this topic, its history, and its ramifications, click here.

Hello John this is John this is John John this is John…

Speaking of WFMU, their new program Aircheck recently broadcasted an abridged recording of John Lennon acting as a guest DJ on a SoCal radio station called KKHJ in 1974. It’s a pretty interesting thing to hear – Lennon comes off alternately as a likable gentleman, and an irritating Robin Williams-esque spazz. The most amusing parts for me are the bits in which he does live on-air advertisements for the station’s sponsors, including a pre-chain Tower Records, zit cream, and some clock store offering up Big Ben replicas.

Aircheck also recently aired a grim 1998 on-air conversation with Hank Earl Carr (aka Joseph Lee Bennett), a man who was on the run for what he claims was the accidental death of his son, and his subsequent murder of three police officers. It’s very unsettling when Bennett calmly states that he is going to kill himself because he does not want to be executed or sent to jail – it gives me the chills. For more about Carr, go here, here, and here.

Also in that real audio archive is the airing of a tape of an unidentified DJ in the 70s who sounds as though he is losing his mind on the air as he psyches his listeners up for the weekend.

A Little In The Baggy, A Little In The Purse

In case some of you weren’t aware, there are some new Jay-Z recording floating around on various file sharing services right now, they are from a special advance promo of this fall’s The Blueprint 2. The songs are “South Philly Niggaz”, “Show You”, “Calling My Name” and “Early in the Morning”.

I’m not sure how I feel about them just yet – I really love “Calling My Name”, which has this thumping one-note bass line and a piano sample that sounds extremely familiar but I can’t place it. It sounds a lot like late 70s Elton John or something. It’s really smooth and sweet, it isn’t entirely unlike a mellow “Takeover” with a little dash of “Hard Knock Life”. This song, like the other three just don’t sound finished yet – I hope they aren’t. All four are promising, but seem to be missing something, they lack the ‘oomph’ of other recent Jay-Z music.

Measured up against the best songs off of The Blueprint, this stuff is neither here nor there. I hope Hov’s saving the best for the actual release and is just trying to throw us all off with this promo.

The Same Band You’ve Always Known?

For the past few weeks, Steven McDonald from the band Redd Kross has been recording his own version of the White Stripes’ White Blood Cells LP with his bass playing transposed over the band’s music. He’s been putting up MP3s of each completed song on Redd Kross’ official website, and now has the blessing of the White Stripes themselves.

Here are some excerpts of what McDonald has to say about this project:

I hope that anybody involved with the White Stripes will see this as the tribute I have intended it to be. I am in no way trying to suggest that their music is not complete or unfinished, in fact I’m sure that some could use my interpretations as the perfect argument against the use of bass guitar in their music. If that is it’s true validity, then so be it…

That is what this performance is for me, an opportunity to be a part of someone else’s group identity, in this case family even. It’s beyond fan … I’m joining the band! This is still very much the White Stripes … same band just a new take on their latest record … rather my take on their latest record…

It’s a pretty interesting and bold project, and I think that this is sort of the next logical progression from the bootleg phenomenon – I think things like this will become increasingly common as it becomes more clear to people that audio recordings don’t ever have to be considered finished, that the audience can now ‘improve’ and alter the songs to meet their specifications.

Anyway, if you want to jump in on this, now is the time. Starting on Monday, McDonald will be reposting one song per day to catch people up to where he is on the record. So Monday, it’s “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground”, Tuesday it’s “Hotel Yorba”, and so on.

My verdict on what I’ve heard thus far – the two songs currently online, “The Union Forever” and “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” are improved by the addition of bass/keyboards in my mind, but “Little Room” (which was posted last week) was fucking DESTROYED by the bassline that McDonald added. He should give that one another shot, maybe…

That’s the way the Jell-O judicates, folks.

Clinic are not meant for large outdoor free concerts. This is something that I learned last night – this is music that is meant to be paid full attention to, and is diminished by having loads of people chatting amongst themselves while they play “Porno” and “The Second Line”. Clinic is music meant for small rooms, and it’s meant for people who have something more than a casual interest in their music.

Of course, this has nothing to do with Clinic’s actual performance, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I especially loved last night’s cool, mellow “Mr. Moonlight”, which was suited very well to being played on a pier in the twilight. I was happy to see a slightly different set from the last time I saw the band too – they traded “Come Into Our Room” for a new song, and “Magic Boots” for “Monkey On Your Back”. I was excited to hear them play different songs, even if it was at the expense of two of my personal favorites. Still, them not playing “Come Into Our Room” was a slight let-down. The last time I saw them perform that song, it seemed like a perverse, jittery encantation; it was a perfect song for them to open up a show. “Candle lights and all things bright, come into our room.” Also, it was sort of strange that they skipped that song since it is their newest single…hmm.

The two opening acts were very, very lame. Radio 4 played bland Gang Of 4-meets-INXS 80s bass heavy rock, striking me as nothing more than a bunch of unimaginative bores cashing in on the popularity of their Brooklyn home. The program said that their lyrics were about “living in the city of New York”. Eek.

Firewater were just embarassing. This is a band that spent nearly an hour offering up every ‘alt-rock’ musical cliche known to man, seeming as though their prime musical ambition was to have their music appear in advertisements and on tv shows. Terrible, mind-numbing Corporate Rock.

On the way home, I was thumbing through a copy of Tuesday’s New York Post that was on the seat next to me on the train. I found Dan Acquilante’s review of Sonic Youth‘s Murray Street album. It was a positive review, but one error jumped out at me – Acquilante says something to the effect of “the album starts off strong with “Rain On A Tin Roof””. Do the New York Post employ fact checkers anymore? Is Dan Acquilante so lazy or under such severe deadline pressure that he could not bother to look at the cd packaging to note that the opening track is called “The Empty Page”, and that the third song is titled simply “Rain On Tin”? It’s such a simple error, but it ruins the authority of the review and the reviewer in one fell swoop. I know the Post is the last paper to expect integrity and facts from, but this is just ridiculous.

Some links of interest:

I highly recommend Acoustica‘s MP3 mixing program. It’s certainly been one of the leadings factors as to why I haven’t been posting any new content here for the past several days. The program is extremely easy to use, and I’ve mostly been using it to create cd-long DJ-style mixes and ‘radio edit’ versions of long songs that occupy too much mix cd space. Example: “Karen Revisited” by Sonic Youth, which I’ve faded out around the 4 minute mark, excising a little over 7 minutes of instrumental noise at the end of the song proper. Don’t get me wrong – I love that bit of the song, but not at the expense of packing as many Sonic Youth songs onto a mix cd-r as I can.

Sequential Tart is probably no secret to the majority of people reading this blog, but I still want to give a big thumbs up to their monthly Bizarre Breasts column, which skewers poorly drawn female comic characters, mostly focusing on the Image Comics crowd. It’s an easy target, sure, but the quality is there. For real.

Henry Raddick fans should rejoice – The man himself breaks his silence in an interview with The Register. What does Mr. Raddick have to say to other 400 lb men with low self esteem? “Enjoy the battle,” says Raddick. “It’s you against the entire world.”

I have no idea who these people are, but they have me linked, they’re funny, and they are from NYC, so I return the favor. Welcome aboard, ‘Universal Donor’ and ‘Pussy Willow’.

People in the NYC area who are planning to see the free Clinic show tomorrow at Pier 54 should take note: The Village Voice is wrong, the show starts at 7 PM, and Clinic won’t be going on til around 9 PM. The Voice even lists the wrong number for the venue. The proper number for Hudson River Park is 212 791 2530, you can call them to double check if you like.

To be perfectly frank, all of the current alternatives to Audiogalaxy aren’t very good. I hate the way that Kazaa, Limewire, Morpheus, and QTrax function – I can think of nothing positive to say about any of those programs. Filetopia is alright, but has a fairly weak selection. SoulSeek is the best I’ve found thus far, but that’s probably just because it’s being overrun with Audiogalaxy refugees, and is building up AG’s shared library a bit better than the others.

I’ve been running the same tests on all of them. First, I check to see what comes up when I put in seaches for popular artists that I know very well – Pavement, Sonic Youth, Sleater-Kinney, and The Neptunes. Invariably, the results are a fucking mess, there’s no rhyme or reason to the order of results. I hate that.

Second, I’ve been putting through searches for the more obscure interests that I have, and 90% of the time, there are no results. The databases on these services are of no help to me, not for the things that I most valued Audiogalaxy for.

Until someone makes something that functions in the clean, organized way that AG ran, or at very least the harddrives that made up that database are reunited, it looks like I’m limited to only downloading the very music that the RIAA set out to block me and people like me from accessing.

More about the RIAA and the demise of Audiogalaxy

I think the fundamental difference in opinion in this matter comes from how a person views music. If you view music as a commodity, as something that intrinsically involves dollar signs, then you take the RIAA’s side in this matter. If you think of music as being important cultural information, something from which knowledge is gained, then you will agree that having valuable online libraries of this shared information is in the best interests of the people. This isn’t even an argument against people selling records, or artists making money from their work. It is an argument in favor of libraries.

Only the hacks will stop making music if there’s no money in it, or more accurately, less money than they would have in the old distribution model. Thousands of people make music without making much (or any) money from it. A lack of compensation has NEVER stopped people before, and it won’t stop people in the future. File sharing does not hurt the overwhelming majority of musicians, and it can be debated whether or not Audiogalaxy et al have had all that much to do with the marginal decline in overall record sales. The industry seems to want to blame everyone but themselves, and meanwhile they are the ones who are constantly boosting cd prices which are already marked up far beyond their production costs in the midst of a recession. It’s not hard to figure out why people are buying less albums – as Videodrome says on Barbelith:

Oh, and by the way, Hilary [Rosen]? That whole slumping sales thing? You probably haven’t noticed, but the US is in a fucking RECESSION. That $18 Mudvayne disc at Sam Goody doesn’t look so good compared to food.

It is shameful that the RIAA is blaming the record industry’s steady loss of sales on the file sharing of a relative minority of people rather than on the fact that the industry is pricing records out of the hands of ordinary people. Even those who have a lot of money to burn will buy fewer records if the price is too high – it’s just simple logic! If records were priced reasonably (somewhere in the $6-11 range), sales would inevitably increase, and file sharing would be viewed no differently than the public libraries that they are.

The industry is trying to stop the future – a future in which information and culture can spread freely, a future in which people can potentially have access to music as easily as they have access to the contents of their public library – easier even, since they would not have to deal with waiting for what they want to access to be in stock. Ultimately, I side with the people in this matter – I strongly believe that people should have a right to access to information and culture regardless of their income.

The analogy of what the record industry is about to become – that is, the book business – in New York Magazine is accurate. People still buy books, and people will still buy records. People are conditioned in our culture to like owning objects. This isn’t going to change. There’s no sense in fighting file sharing, and the RIAA will be made to look foolish when future generations look back on what they tried to do. Hilary Rosen will look just like Joe McCarthy and Fredric Wertham…

Boycott the RIAA.

The RIAA have officially murdered Audiogalaxy. It’s a bit like having the major book publishers of the world get together to burn down public libraries, really. I hate living in a world where money is valued over knowledge, I really do.

The new Sleater-Kinney album One Beat has a very strange feeling to it, it’s a lot more harsh than the last three records, but they throw in these little pop touches to the songs that seem weird when they are contrasted with the more severe elements of the songs. Corin’s voice is back to being quite shrill after toning it down a bit on All Hands On The Bad One and The Hot Rock, which I think suits the songs pretty well, but I miss the naunces of songs like the ones on The Hot Rock. Most of the songs seem to claim “Combat Rock” as a genre description, many of them have this very martial sounding beat to them. It’s a bit like “Sleater-Kinney Goes To War”. I like it, but I don’t love it just yet.

You know what I do love?

Douglas Wolk’s Rules For Touring Bands.

I think Yo La Tengo’s The Sounds of the Sounds of Science might be one of the most relaxing records I’ve ever heard. The music was written and recorded to be a soundtrack for avant-garde deep sea documentaries by Jean Painleve, and sounds very appropriate for the subject matter. The recordings are very short on mid-range sounds, it’s all deep bass and high treble. I normally don’t get excited about music meant for soundtrack or background-music purposes, but every track on this record is involving and unique. I especially love “How Some Jellyfish Are Born” and “Hyas and Stenorhynchus”, which are quite soothing, particularly on this dark and muggy day.

Yo La Tengo will be playing a free show in Prospect Park at 9 pm on July 12th, by the way. It’s nice that so many bands that I like are playing for free in New York this summer…Clinic will be at Pier 54 on June 26th, Neko Case will be at Castle Clinton on August 1st, Sonic Youth will be in Central Park on August 11th, and Sleater-Kinney will be playing the Siren Festival, as noted in a previous entry.

I really enjoyed reading New X-Men #127. I think it’s Grant Morrison’s best issue so far.

There’s something so poetic and lovely about Xorn, in the way that he speaks and acts, and in the concept of what he is. I really like how it is explained that he does not see or hear the way that humans do, but senses and understands wavelengths and vibrations. I love thinking about what that must feel like, and how that could be quite liberating. I’m no science guy, but is my little brother correct when he says that Xorn perceives things in 6D? That’s so beautiful.

I like how good Xorn is, how he is unselfish, how only wishes to help others, that all he wants is peace. I like how he has trouble understanding why other people do not feel this way, and I like how Professor Xavier tries to explain it to him. There’s so many lovely quotable bits in this issue, many of them in the scene with Xavier and Xorn – a quiet discussion between two philosophical visionaries.

I think the artwork in this issue is perfect, and I don’t think anyone else who may have had the opportunity to draw the issue would have captured the feeling of the story as well. I like the way that Leon and Sienkiewicz render the scenes in Manhattan – they really do look and feel a lot like Chinatown – and the scenes with Xorn on the subway and in the tenement building just look so right. Leon has a lot of talent for drawing very natural body language, and articulating a feeling of quiet sadness in the drawings.

The basic plot with Xorn trying to save the “monster” child is sort of irrelevant, it’s obviously just there to give the story context and show Xorn doing something. This story is about letting the reader to get to know Xorn, and I think it did that wonderfully. I think that at least for the moment, Xorn is my favorite character in superhero fiction. He’s certainly the most refreshing one, anyway.

Oh, and my favorite line, among the tight competition:

…so I have tried to capture my feelings for you, in the form of symbols here on this book of paper leaves. But these lines and curves are not much like thoughts or feelings at all.

I also read the first issue of Morrison’s The Filth series yesterday. I think the new issue of New X-Men was a lot better. The differences are quite stark – the NXM comic was quiet and intimate, simplistic and character driven. It was all about thoughts and emotions. The Filth was more like The Invisibles, kind of cold and distant – it felt a bit like a put-on, something that was trying to get me excited or even shock me. It’s far too early for me to say much about this series, but I sure hope Grant makes at least one of the characters likeable, because I just can’t get into any of these characters.

Reading the issue, I got the feeling that it was like a bunch of leftover ideas for the Invisibles (or things Grant thought of afterwards and was upset that they came too late) just thrown together. The Filth certainly has that “here’s a big idea! here’s another one! here’s something sort of crazy! here’s some people acting sort of badass!” thing that the Invisibles had, but I’ve never really been into that much. I’d much rather have characters, thank you. Still, I’m being really unfair since this is only the first issue out of a series of thirteen. Or perhaps I’m being more fair to Grant than he deserves – if someone else wrote this, I’d be thinking “geez. another dystopian future. and the characters are a bit like the ones in The Matrix. oh brother, here we go again.”

I quite liked that a lot of the scenes played out without dialogue and intentionally moved slowly…I think Weston shows off a lot of his storytelling chops, and just from this issue I already have a greater appreciation of his talents.

Jack Fear has some interesting ideas about the first issue, and I think they improved my second reading of the issue, though I’m still not feeling it.

…and here I am watching the second half of The Hamptons tonight. I’m going to refrain from launching into a hateful diatribe about why the majority of people in this documentary depress and anger me so much…it’s just not worth the energy really. I’m sure it all goes without saying for anyone who would be reading this blog.

I will say this – I am very distressed by the fact that virtually every person who ends up in any sort of reality or documentary programming speaks almost entirely in junk English. It’s just a lot of very dull, inarticulate people trying hard to sound intelligent. It’s repulsive.

Well, I can try to cheer myself up by reminding myself that today I stumbled upon a whole concert worth of Malkmus/Jicks mp3s. It’s a reasonably nice sounding recording from mid-April in Buenos Aires. The show is notable mostly for containing several new unreleased works-in-progress songs; plus two Pavement songs (“Here” and “In The Mouth a Desert”) and several half-assed covers including R.E.M.’s “The One I Love”, Oasis’ “Champagne Supernova”, Radiohead’s “Creep” and “High & Dry”, Sheryl Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy”, and The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil”. If you’re just going to go for two of the new songs; I say go for “Oyster (aka Crimson Alligator)” and the first untitled song in the set – the mellow keyboard-heavy number with the lovely chorus “oh Sherry, don’t you cry Mary”.

Other good news includes the fact that The 2nd Annual Siren Festival on Coney Island is right around the corner, and Sleater-Kinney and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs will be on the bill. I can’t say I’m too excited about seeing The Donnas or The Shins, though…

I am watching The Hamptons right now, and it is justifying every feeling of severe misanthropy I’ve ever felt in my entire life.