CHICKEN BUTT!
It's my longtime friend from the Internets - Heather Bradley. This chick is wacky crazy talented -- I think the name of her production company, "Country Breakdance Inc," says it all.
UPDATE JUNE '09: Aw, she's taken all but three of her songs down, as well as her "Chicken Butt" skits. I hear she's preparing some new stuff to put up, though.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
How to lie without lying
IN THE WORLD OF ADVERTISING free speech and artistic license allow the wolf to dress as a sheep, and no law will stop him. It’s bad enough advertisers lie with words and are rarely caught, and by omission, and nobody notices; but the worst lies are implied lies told by cartoon mascots and actors playing fictitious characters acting out fantasy situations which, we are led to believe, are somehow connected to the how the advertised product actually works in the real world. These fictions transmit impressions intended to be received as fact – and yet more insidiously, to bypass our rationality by evoking desired emotions and linking them to the product, company or belief being sold. How do you accuse a fictitious character of lying?
Friday, July 04, 2008
This is not America
SINCE IT'S INDEPENDENCE DAY, I think it behooves me to wax political, something I don't usually do here. What I've been wondering is: Does anybody read the writings of the Founding Fathers any more? Common Sense? The Declaration of Independence? The Constitution for the united States of America, even? (I know lawyers and federal judges don’t read the Constitution, but what about the rest of us?)
Does anyone take seriously anymore the founding documents of the uSA and the antecedent philosophical manifestos, except as a source of empty slogans and selective prooftexts in support of a few “approved” causes here and there?
I guess not. If Americans were familiar with this country’s history we’d realize we have already become the tyrannical empire that we rebelled against in 1776. The difference is it’s not London, but Washington -– followed by its once-proud creators-turned-subsidiaries, the states – who crush us with taxes, regulations and indignities small and large. And they do this with an intensity the British Empire never could have imagined. Rather than redcoats, it’s black-pajama-clad, masked, body-armored FBI, BATF and SWAT teams and local cops stomping around like imperial stormtroopers, grabbing people left and right, demanding our papers, surveilling us everywhere we go, trampling our rights and our lives. Shooting first and asking questions later.
Rather than a King George overseas, we now have a would-be King George ensconced right here at home. Of course, the overgrowth of Washington government didn’t begin with Ridiculous George; the disease has been growing for decades.
I indict the so-called education system, particularly the government schools, which simply don’t teach American history, don’t teach civics, don’t teach us the meaning of those vague terms like “freedom” and “liberty.” As Orwell prophesied, such words have become Newspeak – their meaning surreptitiously replaced with meanings almost diametrically opposite. When George W. Bush talks about “freedom” today he means something very different from what George Washington meant.
Whereas freedom used to mean the right to pursue happiness unrestricted by coercion of any kind – above all, government coercion – now it means the right to a feeling of security. Whereas freedom once was understood to be a right inherent in man, now it is a privilege meted out by government as it pleases. Whereas freedom once was understood in explicitly political terms -- as noted above, it meant freedom from government coercion -- now it’s been conflated with consumer choice: since you can choose from millions of products to buy, you are therefore free. Where once upon a time everyone understood freedom could not be imposed and foreign militarism could not achieve it, now we drop it on other countries from B-52 bombers. Why don't we just drop all the pretenses and call ourselves the New British Empire?
Does anyone take seriously anymore the founding documents of the uSA and the antecedent philosophical manifestos, except as a source of empty slogans and selective prooftexts in support of a few “approved” causes here and there?
I guess not. If Americans were familiar with this country’s history we’d realize we have already become the tyrannical empire that we rebelled against in 1776. The difference is it’s not London, but Washington -– followed by its once-proud creators-turned-subsidiaries, the states – who crush us with taxes, regulations and indignities small and large. And they do this with an intensity the British Empire never could have imagined. Rather than redcoats, it’s black-pajama-clad, masked, body-armored FBI, BATF and SWAT teams and local cops stomping around like imperial stormtroopers, grabbing people left and right, demanding our papers, surveilling us everywhere we go, trampling our rights and our lives. Shooting first and asking questions later.
Rather than a King George overseas, we now have a would-be King George ensconced right here at home. Of course, the overgrowth of Washington government didn’t begin with Ridiculous George; the disease has been growing for decades.
I indict the so-called education system, particularly the government schools, which simply don’t teach American history, don’t teach civics, don’t teach us the meaning of those vague terms like “freedom” and “liberty.” As Orwell prophesied, such words have become Newspeak – their meaning surreptitiously replaced with meanings almost diametrically opposite. When George W. Bush talks about “freedom” today he means something very different from what George Washington meant.
Whereas freedom used to mean the right to pursue happiness unrestricted by coercion of any kind – above all, government coercion – now it means the right to a feeling of security. Whereas freedom once was understood to be a right inherent in man, now it is a privilege meted out by government as it pleases. Whereas freedom once was understood in explicitly political terms -- as noted above, it meant freedom from government coercion -- now it’s been conflated with consumer choice: since you can choose from millions of products to buy, you are therefore free. Where once upon a time everyone understood freedom could not be imposed and foreign militarism could not achieve it, now we drop it on other countries from B-52 bombers. Why don't we just drop all the pretenses and call ourselves the New British Empire?
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Bright, happy, and maybe even deadly
LOTS OF ADS ARE SILLY. Those aimed at young women in particular tend to be the silliest. I don't mean funny: I mean dumbed-down and mindless, heavy on manipulation and light on information. Especially with regard to nationally branded drugs and other personal products aimed at young women, the trend is to bathe the senses in bright, happy, sappy, silly fantasy imagery having nothing to do with the products. There's a lot of bright colors, a lot of young pretty women laughing and cavorting, a lot of surreal imagery seemingly intended more to delight and distract than to deliver information.
I'm thinking of that one for YAZ birth control pills. ("Yaz"? They did that song back in '83, "Move Out," right?) A bunch of girls being ebullient and smiley and happy, skipping around, having great times together, while all around them colored balloons are floating up into the sky. Apparently market research says the way to manipulate young women is not to talk sense -- show them smiles and balloons. Over all this, the bouncy rejection anthem "Goodbye to You" plays. It's just a big party! As oval balloons (eggs?) float away into the distance and these girls say goodbye to them, meanwhile some fine print flashes on the screen -- I didn't quite get what it said. Of course, that's what they want. Remember beautiful bouncy girls, smiles, carefree defiance; forget that it's a fricking synthetic hormone that screws with your every physiological process, may increase risk of breast cancer, and can even give you a stroke -- which happened to a friend of mine in her 20s. But that's the price of "liberation," I guess.
I'm thinking of that one for YAZ birth control pills. ("Yaz"? They did that song back in '83, "Move Out," right?) A bunch of girls being ebullient and smiley and happy, skipping around, having great times together, while all around them colored balloons are floating up into the sky. Apparently market research says the way to manipulate young women is not to talk sense -- show them smiles and balloons. Over all this, the bouncy rejection anthem "Goodbye to You" plays. It's just a big party! As oval balloons (eggs?) float away into the distance and these girls say goodbye to them, meanwhile some fine print flashes on the screen -- I didn't quite get what it said. Of course, that's what they want. Remember beautiful bouncy girls, smiles, carefree defiance; forget that it's a fricking synthetic hormone that screws with your every physiological process, may increase risk of breast cancer, and can even give you a stroke -- which happened to a friend of mine in her 20s. But that's the price of "liberation," I guess.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Rhythm & Snooze
I get peeved at this R & B
With its musical illiteracy
Just packed full of gimmicry
No originality
I'm goin' outta my mind ...
(To be sung to the tune of "Suffocate" by J. Holiday)
THERE'S THIS HORRIBLE R & B song, currently seeing endless radio rotation, that's emblematic of what's so wrong with the genre these days -- and its listening audience, assuming that this is the stuff they actually prefer. This purported love song, "Suffocate," suffers from many of the problems that plague most of its recent counterparts: the copycat beat and sound, the four-chord monotony, the plodding dreariness, the constricted melodic range. Most of the melody consists of a single note; in its more adventurous phrases the singer might actually cover three or even four notes).
The vocals present the annoying whiny-boy persona that has become cliche. And then, on top of the insipid tone are the inane lyrics:
I can’t breathe when you talk to me
I can’t breathe when you’re touching me
I suffocate when you’re away from me
So much love you take from me
I’m going outta my mind ...
I don't care how caught up you may be in the throes of teenage infatuation: If you are literally having problems breathing when your crush talks to you, you'd better either get yourself checked for asthma or allergies -- or give her a mint and tell her to get that halitosis looked at.
More than ever, R & B is dumbed down -- even if one accounts for the fact that its audience has been dumbed down as well. The bright spots, such as Keiysha Cole and old-timers like R. Kelly, are the exception to the rule. When I grew up in the '80s and '90s music was performed not always by adults, but at an adult level, in the sense that it was mature and well-crafted.
While cleaning and trying to organize my stuff recently, I rediscovered my cache of old music tapes. You know, the mix tapes of your favorite songs that you taped off the radio or from library-borrowed LPs back in the day. With the rare exception -- including some dance mixes from Q101 -- I stopped caring enough to tape stuff off the radio around 1998. Going through my eclectic collection (Tears for Fears here, the Gap Band there, Common, SOS Band, Led Zeppelin, and here's a little Mos Def!) was like a trip back in time. How strange and different were the radio stations of then and now, especially the urban formats such as WCGI. In just over 10 years, it's as if someone pulled a plug and let out all the soul -- not to mention the music -- out of the stuff that we still call rhythm and blues.
Listening to this stuff, I found myself wondering: Where have they locked up all the real artists, writers, arrangers, producers? The ones who came up in the '70s and '80s, even early '90s -- who knew their way around an instrument or two, maybe more? (In addition to singing, Stevie Wonder and Prince often played all of the parts on their records.) How did commercial R & B go, within the space of just a few years, from the sophisticated sounds of Angela Winbush, Quincy Jones, Jam & Lewis, Teddy Riley, Tony! Toni! Tone!, Bell Biv Devoe, Al B. Sure, early Puffy, early R. Kelly, to the faux-soul whining and hollow vocal acrobatics that dominate today?
How did we go from masterfully melded rhythm and skillfully crafted, intricate melodies and harmonies, to hollow, mindless chants where entire songs get by on barely five notes and three, two or no chords? To high digital sheen but no emotional content? To subsonic bass, yet in every other respect, complete shallowness?
Why have even those who used to produce good music -- hello, Diddy? -- now selling bottom-of-the-barrel shlock? (Well I know the answer in P. Diddy's case -- "because he can" and because the music marketing machine as it exists today rewards image, hype and payola, not art.)
And I'm not even getting into the lyrics yet.
Nowadays, "producers" (are there any songwriters still working, let alone arrangers?) seem to think technology can do everything. Computers can do a lot, but they can't compose or arrange or emote; they can only help those who have those skills. There's more processing power and speed, more features, more plug-ins, more effects, vaster digital sound libraries than ever in the history of man; and less artistry.
Yeah, I'm getting old, but what's that got to do with it? I also like new music that's good and creative. It's just that you can't find it that easily any more.
With its musical illiteracy
Just packed full of gimmicry
No originality
I'm goin' outta my mind ...
(To be sung to the tune of "Suffocate" by J. Holiday)
THERE'S THIS HORRIBLE R & B song, currently seeing endless radio rotation, that's emblematic of what's so wrong with the genre these days -- and its listening audience, assuming that this is the stuff they actually prefer. This purported love song, "Suffocate," suffers from many of the problems that plague most of its recent counterparts: the copycat beat and sound, the four-chord monotony, the plodding dreariness, the constricted melodic range. Most of the melody consists of a single note; in its more adventurous phrases the singer might actually cover three or even four notes).
The vocals present the annoying whiny-boy persona that has become cliche. And then, on top of the insipid tone are the inane lyrics:
I can’t breathe when you talk to me
I can’t breathe when you’re touching me
I suffocate when you’re away from me
So much love you take from me
I’m going outta my mind ...
I don't care how caught up you may be in the throes of teenage infatuation: If you are literally having problems breathing when your crush talks to you, you'd better either get yourself checked for asthma or allergies -- or give her a mint and tell her to get that halitosis looked at.
More than ever, R & B is dumbed down -- even if one accounts for the fact that its audience has been dumbed down as well. The bright spots, such as Keiysha Cole and old-timers like R. Kelly, are the exception to the rule. When I grew up in the '80s and '90s music was performed not always by adults, but at an adult level, in the sense that it was mature and well-crafted.
While cleaning and trying to organize my stuff recently, I rediscovered my cache of old music tapes. You know, the mix tapes of your favorite songs that you taped off the radio or from library-borrowed LPs back in the day. With the rare exception -- including some dance mixes from Q101 -- I stopped caring enough to tape stuff off the radio around 1998. Going through my eclectic collection (Tears for Fears here, the Gap Band there, Common, SOS Band, Led Zeppelin, and here's a little Mos Def!) was like a trip back in time. How strange and different were the radio stations of then and now, especially the urban formats such as WCGI. In just over 10 years, it's as if someone pulled a plug and let out all the soul -- not to mention the music -- out of the stuff that we still call rhythm and blues.
Listening to this stuff, I found myself wondering: Where have they locked up all the real artists, writers, arrangers, producers? The ones who came up in the '70s and '80s, even early '90s -- who knew their way around an instrument or two, maybe more? (In addition to singing, Stevie Wonder and Prince often played all of the parts on their records.) How did commercial R & B go, within the space of just a few years, from the sophisticated sounds of Angela Winbush, Quincy Jones, Jam & Lewis, Teddy Riley, Tony! Toni! Tone!, Bell Biv Devoe, Al B. Sure, early Puffy, early R. Kelly, to the faux-soul whining and hollow vocal acrobatics that dominate today?
How did we go from masterfully melded rhythm and skillfully crafted, intricate melodies and harmonies, to hollow, mindless chants where entire songs get by on barely five notes and three, two or no chords? To high digital sheen but no emotional content? To subsonic bass, yet in every other respect, complete shallowness?
Why have even those who used to produce good music -- hello, Diddy? -- now selling bottom-of-the-barrel shlock? (Well I know the answer in P. Diddy's case -- "because he can" and because the music marketing machine as it exists today rewards image, hype and payola, not art.)
And I'm not even getting into the lyrics yet.
Nowadays, "producers" (are there any songwriters still working, let alone arrangers?) seem to think technology can do everything. Computers can do a lot, but they can't compose or arrange or emote; they can only help those who have those skills. There's more processing power and speed, more features, more plug-ins, more effects, vaster digital sound libraries than ever in the history of man; and less artistry.
Yeah, I'm getting old, but what's that got to do with it? I also like new music that's good and creative. It's just that you can't find it that easily any more.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
it's not just a job, it's an adventure
IN THE JOB I'VE held the last six months I've had to work through rain, sleet, snow and below-zero temps. I've worked in the edge of the country and in the suburbs and in the city. I've been falsely arrested once, had the police called on me countless other times, and been treated as an idiot or (worse yet) a total nonentity countless other times. I've been berated, had doors slammed in my face, been pushed around and been called a nigger. I've been in mansions, million-dollar condos, mobile homes, houses of squalor and the more charming and picturesque "white trash houses." I've met butchers, bakers, guitar makers, executives, and one ex-powerful-congressman-turned-convict-turned-regular-citizen. I've met a guy who from all appearances was one of the original "Goodfellas" and I've met good ole boys with deer heads on their wall (or a skinned deer hangin' from the garage rafters) and yuppie traders who've got the world by the balls. I've met immigrants from all parts, including perhaps every country in Latin America as well as the Carribbean, Africa, England and Scotland. I've had a biker chick invite me to ride with her and met countless other customers I didn't feel at liberty to flirt with. I've had an old man ask me whether I had a girlfriend and I've had an eighty-some-year-old woman invite me into her bedroom. (To see her expensive Persian rugs and tapestries -- and her circular bed!) I've been ripped off by a gypsy woman and I've seen a dude with falling-down pants and only a thong underneath run repeatedly past my car, like he ... wanted me to notice him or something. And those are only the things I can recall off the top of my head right now. I have made some of the smallest -- and the biggest -- paychecks I have ever seen before or am ever likely to see in any other job. Provided I keep producing more of the latter kind of checks than the former, this blue-collar job, which does not even require a high school diploma, will the first one I've had that would actually enable me to pay off my college loans.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
A dirty boy and dirty girl
I THOUGHT I MIGHT LITERALLY DIE laughing. Laughing hard for three minutes straight is painful. And what if you break a rib, or your sternum or something? That could puncture your heart, so yeah -- you actually could die laughing. I had to get up and remove myself from the room so I might have a chance to stop laughing, or at least, reduce the laughter intensity level by at least 40%. I mean, it really seemed, at the time, like a medical emergency.
What brought on this admixture of uncontrolled laughing and paranoia? Well I was sitting there with Brian Wharton, a.k.a. Sharkula, and his sidekick Kick Ass Alyssia, a.k.a. The Drunk Odd Kid, in her living room, for my first screening of their surreal YouTube video "Dirty Boys and Dirty Girls."
Yes, admittedly, my paroxysms were in part fueled by some kind of herbal product we were enjoying, as well as by some beer (and possibly, some weird chemical in the Chinese take-out). It elevated every Sharkula belch, every shot of him gesturing maniacally while sporting a Burger King crown, every shot of Alyssia on an exercise bike tossin' back Old Style -- to outer-space hilarity. Even the lurching beat and burping bassline made me laugh. Or:
Rhymes like these are straight breezy, easy for me
To think, I'm the opposite of Young Jeezy
Please me, my style's sick
I'm a flea in your D-O-G
I'm in the place to get b-b-BUSY
(The "b-b-BUSY" made me bust out laughing even harder; so did typical Shark lines like "Solar polar bear stopped on a staircase"...)
But even without herbal assistance, this is some off-the-planet stuff. I am proud to know such talented and crazy people -- even if their humor is kind of raunchy, at least they are so cartoonish about it that no one could take it seriously. Brian is just a tremendously talented guy blessed and cursed with mental and physical hyperactivity, who I think really just wants everybody to like him. In the meantime, he boasts a virtually random freestyling skill -- he just grabs words and pictures out of the ether and strings them together, often to hilarious effect.
Alyssia is also multitalented, sweet, and smart, and one of the first things she said after we met was that I reminded her of her high school boyfriend, who even had the same name as me. The more we hung out, the more it became evident that we think alike. Well, except nowadays she likes people of the same sex and I like people of the opposite sex. That's a pretty major difference.Anyway, the video. Here you go. (Warning: these lyrics may offend sensitive listeners...)
What brought on this admixture of uncontrolled laughing and paranoia? Well I was sitting there with Brian Wharton, a.k.a. Sharkula, and his sidekick Kick Ass Alyssia, a.k.a. The Drunk Odd Kid, in her living room, for my first screening of their surreal YouTube video "Dirty Boys and Dirty Girls."
Yes, admittedly, my paroxysms were in part fueled by some kind of herbal product we were enjoying, as well as by some beer (and possibly, some weird chemical in the Chinese take-out). It elevated every Sharkula belch, every shot of him gesturing maniacally while sporting a Burger King crown, every shot of Alyssia on an exercise bike tossin' back Old Style -- to outer-space hilarity. Even the lurching beat and burping bassline made me laugh. Or:
Rhymes like these are straight breezy, easy for me
To think, I'm the opposite of Young Jeezy
Please me, my style's sick
I'm a flea in your D-O-G
I'm in the place to get b-b-BUSY
(The "b-b-BUSY" made me bust out laughing even harder; so did typical Shark lines like "Solar polar bear stopped on a staircase"...)
But even without herbal assistance, this is some off-the-planet stuff. I am proud to know such talented and crazy people -- even if their humor is kind of raunchy, at least they are so cartoonish about it that no one could take it seriously. Brian is just a tremendously talented guy blessed and cursed with mental and physical hyperactivity, who I think really just wants everybody to like him. In the meantime, he boasts a virtually random freestyling skill -- he just grabs words and pictures out of the ether and strings them together, often to hilarious effect.
Alyssia is also multitalented, sweet, and smart, and one of the first things she said after we met was that I reminded her of her high school boyfriend, who even had the same name as me. The more we hung out, the more it became evident that we think alike. Well, except nowadays she likes people of the same sex and I like people of the opposite sex. That's a pretty major difference.Anyway, the video. Here you go. (Warning: these lyrics may offend sensitive listeners...)
The fame of Hall
LIVE FROM DARYL'S HOUSE?
This is too good to be true. This is the online TV show starring one of my musical heroes doing music from his solo albums and, of course, from his thirty-odd-year partnership with John Oates. The latest episode co-stars KT Tunstall, a capable guitarist and singer who makes some beautiful harmonies with Daryl, and is not so shabby solo either. But best of all, Episode 1 (in the archives) kicks off with "Everything Your Heart Desires," a song I've never seen Hall and Oates do live -- not in the two H & O shows I've attended, not in hundreds of online videos. After that comes a acoustic-guitar-touched version of "Cab Driver," from Hall's solo album, which captures even more of the dark, misty mood of the original single, then expands into an acid-jazz jam. Then, out of left field, comes the forgotten "It's a Laugh," a late '70s single that had only modest chart success but was nonetheless a good song.
If all you know about Hall and/or Hall and Oates is their jingle-slick, radio-ready hits, you don't know the half. They're one of those acts who continually remake their songs: the live version is always new and improved, and usually extended. In episode 1 Hall's voice is in relatively good shape (not always the case anymore as he approaches 60). Do the brief registration and log in and see for yourself. The man's still got it.
This is too good to be true. This is the online TV show starring one of my musical heroes doing music from his solo albums and, of course, from his thirty-odd-year partnership with John Oates. The latest episode co-stars KT Tunstall, a capable guitarist and singer who makes some beautiful harmonies with Daryl, and is not so shabby solo either. But best of all, Episode 1 (in the archives) kicks off with "Everything Your Heart Desires," a song I've never seen Hall and Oates do live -- not in the two H & O shows I've attended, not in hundreds of online videos. After that comes a acoustic-guitar-touched version of "Cab Driver," from Hall's solo album, which captures even more of the dark, misty mood of the original single, then expands into an acid-jazz jam. Then, out of left field, comes the forgotten "It's a Laugh," a late '70s single that had only modest chart success but was nonetheless a good song.
If all you know about Hall and/or Hall and Oates is their jingle-slick, radio-ready hits, you don't know the half. They're one of those acts who continually remake their songs: the live version is always new and improved, and usually extended. In episode 1 Hall's voice is in relatively good shape (not always the case anymore as he approaches 60). Do the brief registration and log in and see for yourself. The man's still got it.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
The award for Worldwide Worst Song and Video of the '80s
GOES TO ... TRACY SPENCER
for "Take Me Back."
No, not
Tracie Spencer, the "Star Search" -winning songbird who first hit in '88 at the tender age of
12, with the beautiful ballad "Hide and Seek" and the uptempo number "Symptoms of True Love." These were smart, well-put-together R&B songs and, sung in Tracie's
breathy teen-age soprano, were pretty hard not to like.
Tracie also was smart, well-put-together, and hard not to like --
which was why I was convinced that one day, when I got my
own huge recording career off the
ground, I was gonna meet Tracie, eventually seal the deal, and give her a bevy of beautiful, musically
talented children.
In '90 Tracie had sophomore success with "Tender Kisses" and the socially conscious dance cut "This House." And more recently (okay, it was actually in 1999) she dropped an even
better, even more mature album with cuts like "It's All About You" and "Still In My Heart," before dropping off the music map. Which is a shame, because the world of
R&B and pop deserves better than molded-plastic vocaldroids like Beyonce and
Rihanna.
This brings us to Tracy Spencer, who is
some sort of alternate-universe, Italo-disco bootleg knockoff who you might find by accident upon searching for Tracie Spencer. Thanks to YouTube, we
now have access to the other Spencer's
oeuvre. And that
ouevre is pretty awful.
In particular, "Take Me Back": absolute cut-rate crap material seemingly
cranked out by some committee of music industry hacks trying to make a quick
buck.
To accompany the horrid, tone-deaf, synthesized, reverb-drenched* record, an
appropriately corny
video was
produced. With the look of a bad film-school project, it contains a bunch of
late-'80s cliches: deconstructed art-gallery set -- check; lots of whip-zooming in
and out -- check; dance moves centered on machinelike thrusting, humping,
shoulder-jiggling and stalking -- check. There are hints at sexual ambiguity
and recurring shots of a mysterious male figure on a black-and-white
television who looks something like a young George W. Bush. The results you
can see for yourself. Tracy Spencer handily takes the worldwide prize for
Worst Song and Video of the '80s.
* I'm convinced the fan who posted this video to the Italian website did something weird to the audio. The amount and heavy emphasis of reverb on this record is just unreal -- even for an '80s record.
* I'm convinced the fan who posted this video to the Italian website did something weird to the audio. The amount and heavy emphasis of reverb on this record is just unreal -- even for an '80s record.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
"Actually, I prefer nonduality,"
SAID PRASAD, ALOUD, in response to -- nothing.
We were in the midst of silent meditation, and he just suddenly decided to say that. The other yoga students sitting cross-legged in the room, including my brother, laughed good-naturedly, as if they were in on the joke. But, to whom was Prasad responding? No one had said anything. At least, I hadn’t said anything aloud -- I had only thought it.
Mind-reading? Perhaps.
Are psychic powers proof of enlightenment? Not necessarily.
See, I was there at the meditation/worship session, let’s say, less than willingly. My brother, a devout member, had invited me to what I thought would be a New Year’s party. A “celebration,” he'd called it. It wasn’t at all what I had envisioned. I had told him I might come to a party but I wouldn’t get involved in the religion stuff. However, as it turned out, it was all religion stuff: meditating, chanting to various deities I don’t believe in, venerating statues and pictures. It all made me queasy: I didn’t like the spirit in that place. I consider the statues and pictures to be idols. And because of that, I was silently praying -- for protection, not only for myself but for my brother’s two little boys who were also there and who did not understand what they were doing. Because, you know, you have to test the spirits -- many are up to no good.
Did Prasad sense my silent prayers about all this? In Eastern thought praying to a separate, personal, transcendent God, or believing in discrete, personal demonic spirits, would be “dualistic” -- i.e., backward and unenlightened.
Except, curiously enough, when it comes to certain dualistic practices these guys favor, such as arranging dozens of idols, vessels, censers, pictures of their guru, and other items of worship or ceremony on the altar. And bowing down to those idols (or as I like to call them, “non-action figures” – from the biblical observation that they have eyes but cannot see; ears, but cannot hear, and mouths, but cannot speak). It's puzzling that these ones who are going to teach me and other benighted Westerners to transcend the evils of dualism, the attachment to material reality, are here literally worshiping material things.
Religions that worship images and relics and other objects tend to deny that they do so. Each has some rhetorical way to finesse the fact. Roman Catholics bow to statues and graves of saints, pray to them, and petition them for supernatural intervention. But relax: this is not worship, it's "veneration." (Orthodox folk would say the same thing, plus add that they are better since they venerate icons but not statues; but if "veneration" is not worship, what's it matter? They could've saved themselves a schism, seems to me.)
According to my brother, he and his fellow believers do not view the statues as gods; they are “deities.” They “represent various aspects of the divine.” For the time being I'll lay aside the parsing and simply ask: Why do people need a visual representation of the divine?
How enlightened are you, really, if you need pictures? When you grow up, you are expected to be able to read books without pictures. How much more should that be true in spirituality? Wasn’t this exactly the point of the second of the Ten Commandments?
If we’re striving for complete unity and devotion to the Source of all things alone, why then would we fragment our attention upon things, the creation – and some of the lowest, crudest things at that : mere pictures and objects made by human hands? It’s a great example of how a very lofty-sounding principle is negated in practice.
We were in the midst of silent meditation, and he just suddenly decided to say that. The other yoga students sitting cross-legged in the room, including my brother, laughed good-naturedly, as if they were in on the joke. But, to whom was Prasad responding? No one had said anything. At least, I hadn’t said anything aloud -- I had only thought it.
Mind-reading? Perhaps.
Are psychic powers proof of enlightenment? Not necessarily.
See, I was there at the meditation/worship session, let’s say, less than willingly. My brother, a devout member, had invited me to what I thought would be a New Year’s party. A “celebration,” he'd called it. It wasn’t at all what I had envisioned. I had told him I might come to a party but I wouldn’t get involved in the religion stuff. However, as it turned out, it was all religion stuff: meditating, chanting to various deities I don’t believe in, venerating statues and pictures. It all made me queasy: I didn’t like the spirit in that place. I consider the statues and pictures to be idols. And because of that, I was silently praying -- for protection, not only for myself but for my brother’s two little boys who were also there and who did not understand what they were doing. Because, you know, you have to test the spirits -- many are up to no good.
Did Prasad sense my silent prayers about all this? In Eastern thought praying to a separate, personal, transcendent God, or believing in discrete, personal demonic spirits, would be “dualistic” -- i.e., backward and unenlightened.
Except, curiously enough, when it comes to certain dualistic practices these guys favor, such as arranging dozens of idols, vessels, censers, pictures of their guru, and other items of worship or ceremony on the altar. And bowing down to those idols (or as I like to call them, “non-action figures” – from the biblical observation that they have eyes but cannot see; ears, but cannot hear, and mouths, but cannot speak). It's puzzling that these ones who are going to teach me and other benighted Westerners to transcend the evils of dualism, the attachment to material reality, are here literally worshiping material things.
Religions that worship images and relics and other objects tend to deny that they do so. Each has some rhetorical way to finesse the fact. Roman Catholics bow to statues and graves of saints, pray to them, and petition them for supernatural intervention. But relax: this is not worship, it's "veneration." (Orthodox folk would say the same thing, plus add that they are better since they venerate icons but not statues; but if "veneration" is not worship, what's it matter? They could've saved themselves a schism, seems to me.)
According to my brother, he and his fellow believers do not view the statues as gods; they are “deities.” They “represent various aspects of the divine.” For the time being I'll lay aside the parsing and simply ask: Why do people need a visual representation of the divine?
How enlightened are you, really, if you need pictures? When you grow up, you are expected to be able to read books without pictures. How much more should that be true in spirituality? Wasn’t this exactly the point of the second of the Ten Commandments?
If we’re striving for complete unity and devotion to the Source of all things alone, why then would we fragment our attention upon things, the creation – and some of the lowest, crudest things at that : mere pictures and objects made by human hands? It’s a great example of how a very lofty-sounding principle is negated in practice.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Don't make "statements." Make art.
AS FOR NEW YORKER critic Peter Schjeldahl's characterization of Chicago as a "receptor city" (Chicago Reader, November 29), what else is new? It was a New Yorker essayist, A.J. Liebling, who in the '50s penned a famously snotty work titled "Chicago: The Second City," painting this city as a dull, boorish backwater forever doomed to orbit the Sun of culture situated on the Hudson. I put it down to egomania coastalis -- a curious delusion of many NYCers and LAngelinos that everybody wants to be them. If Chicago's greatest export is talent, surely New York's greatest export is hype about New York. Maybe we should cede the "Windy City" moniker to them?
But enough beating up on them. Schjeldahl was right about this: "The major product coming out of art schools is artists' statements." After seeing one conceptual installation show several months ago I was moved to write that "art needing lengthy explanation probably isn’t good art. ...Perhaps some of these folks should focus on writing statements full-time."
I say this from the perspective of a self-schooled artist (now "retired") and musician who taught myself drawing and piano and singing and composition because I loved doing those things and I wanted to be really good at them. Back when I was really into drawing, I did it purely from the love of creating. Want to make statements? Start a blog. Write letters to the editor.
Too much emphasis on theory, "concepts," and self-referential-statement-making at the expense of actual craft or substance, turns art into onanistic self-parody, the so-self-serious butt of jokes by regular folks who, despite their lack of sophistication, have a point. Kudos to Schjeldahl for reminding the emperor to cover up before he catches cold.
But enough beating up on them. Schjeldahl was right about this: "The major product coming out of art schools is artists' statements." After seeing one conceptual installation show several months ago I was moved to write that "art needing lengthy explanation probably isn’t good art. ...Perhaps some of these folks should focus on writing statements full-time."
I say this from the perspective of a self-schooled artist (now "retired") and musician who taught myself drawing and piano and singing and composition because I loved doing those things and I wanted to be really good at them. Back when I was really into drawing, I did it purely from the love of creating. Want to make statements? Start a blog. Write letters to the editor.
Too much emphasis on theory, "concepts," and self-referential-statement-making at the expense of actual craft or substance, turns art into onanistic self-parody, the so-self-serious butt of jokes by regular folks who, despite their lack of sophistication, have a point. Kudos to Schjeldahl for reminding the emperor to cover up before he catches cold.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Dead beats, or the death of melodies and chords
ON A RECENT NIGHT I pulled into a Borders parking lot and the radio was playing that classic house anthem "The Music's Got Me," with that "ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh" refrain, and it reminded me of how I once hated house music.
It was the late '80s, my freshman or sophomore year in high school, when house exploded. While I grew up appreciating lots of different types of music (pop, classic rock, hip-hop, R & B, easy listening, classical, and on it goes), I didn't like this house stuff for several reasons:
1. I was on the tail end of my Beatles/Zeppelin phase.
2. It was also a clique/conformity thing: You see, I was a bougie. My family were like the Huxtables, okay? I was well-educated and "proper"-speaking and spent most of my life around white and Asian kids. I was also kind of Urkel-esque to boot. I didn't fit in with the "real black people." And as they were all into house, I had to be against it.
3. At our football games, the househeads would bring out a big-ass boom box on the sidelines and form a dance circle and start jackin' all over the place. At the time, I thought that was ghetto. It embarrassed me.
4. I couldn't dance. Since house is made for the express purpose of dancing, I didn't see the point.
5. Frankly -- especially when it came to the less melodic stuff -- I thought it sounded like jungle music.
Now eventually, in a couple years' time, I got into the house. I made more black friends. I got in with the clique a little more. I started learning some dance moves. Hey, this is fun! I came to be a househead too.
But back to Borders. After "The Music Got Me" goes off, I head into the store. Lo and behold, there's a book on pop songwriting by one of the masters, Jimmy Webb. (Title: Tunesmith.) And in that book Webb quotes Dick Bradley on the black influence in rock music, and practices that served to create "the abandoning of the tradition of melody which had characterized earlier light and popular musics in Europe and America."
Bradley, sadly, is right to some extent. It's not that the African-American tradition didn't add lots of value to American music at the same time: where would we be without syncopated rhythm, without funk, without crunk, without call-and-response, without blues, without soul, without hip-hop, without house? But just as European music was in a way incomplete without the African input, music from the other extreme -- all rhythm, no melody or harmony -- is equally incomplete. And that's what we are approaching in pop, R&B and hip-hop today (save for those songs which sample the melodies composed by better musicians in a better age such as the '80s or '70s). It's time for notes to stage a return and share the stage with beats. Unfortunately, using notes intelligently and effectively isn't nearly as easy or cheap as making a drum loop on a computer.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Awesomely bad music
ALL THE BAD '80s ballads VH1 can muster up have got nothing on this Aussie, a member of a songwriters message board I belong to. He's an awesomely bad music factory. Although not totally lacking in melodic flair, he tends to blur the line between "artistic" and "autistic," bringing to mind a geriatric Australian Wesley Willis with a fetish for blues, overdramatic vocals and 19th-century poetry. Some of his latest hits: "Thanks to Bagpipes and Poverty," "Death Watch Cat Blues" (about the nursing home cat that knows which patients will die), and of course, "Prostate Blues."
You gotta hear it to believe it.
You gotta hear it to believe it.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Max von Bush: New World Order
ANOTHER INGENIOUS VIDEO mashup from Tim Jones, loaded with subversive truths. Check it out.
(DISCLAIMER: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS CERTAIN "911 TRUTH" MEMES I DO NOT NECESSARILY SUBSCRIBE TO, SUCH AS THE NOTION -- VERY CONTROVERSIAL WITHIN THE MOVEMENT -- THAT WORLD TRADE CENTER LARRY SILVERSTEIN WAS "IN ON THE PLOT" AND EVEN WENT SO FAR AS TO ADMIT I T ON NATIONAL TELEVISION. I, FOR ONE, DON'T THINK THAT THAT'S WHAT SILVERSTEIN MEANT WHEN HE SAID HE GAVE ORDERS TO "PULL" BUILDING 7. I DO, HOWEVER, THINK IT'S QUITE OBVIOUS THAT MODERN STEEL SKYSCRAPERS, SUCH AS BUILDING 7, DON'T JUST FALL DOWN -- AND THAT WE ARE STILL OWED A REAL EXPLANATION OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ON THAT DAY.)
(DISCLAIMER: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS CERTAIN "911 TRUTH" MEMES I DO NOT NECESSARILY SUBSCRIBE TO, SUCH AS THE NOTION -- VERY CONTROVERSIAL WITHIN THE MOVEMENT -- THAT WORLD TRADE CENTER LARRY SILVERSTEIN WAS "IN ON THE PLOT" AND EVEN WENT SO FAR AS TO ADMIT I T ON NATIONAL TELEVISION. I, FOR ONE, DON'T THINK THAT THAT'S WHAT SILVERSTEIN MEANT WHEN HE SAID HE GAVE ORDERS TO "PULL" BUILDING 7. I DO, HOWEVER, THINK IT'S QUITE OBVIOUS THAT MODERN STEEL SKYSCRAPERS, SUCH AS BUILDING 7, DON'T JUST FALL DOWN -- AND THAT WE ARE STILL OWED A REAL EXPLANATION OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ON THAT DAY.)
"Live"? "Active"?
YEAH, DUH -- I REALIZE the name "Live Active Culture" doesn't fit this blog. Originally I'd intended this blog to preview/review events happening around the city that I'd been to, or planned to go to. Of course, I strayed from that purpose very early on, finding it easier to just do pop-culture commentary. I've been looking for a new name, but so far on Blogger, all the names I want are taken by do-nothing blog-squatters. (Yeah, I know that sounds like a fictional Roald Dahl creature...) I'd rather stay here on Blogger than pull up stakes altogether. I'll come up with something soon.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Party like a mock star
WHO'D'VE THUNK THAT a stupid rap song would engender such controversy -- and not about promotion of drugs, or violence, or sex, but because it transgresses some imagined boundary between the "real" and the "poseurs"?
On message boards like this and blogs like this a lot of black punk-rock kids vented their indignation that a bunch of crunk-rappers would dare rip off, and thus cheapen, their social signifiers and costumes without understanding the profound meaning behind it all!
On a blog at "Unofficially Afropunk," Chachalila gripes:
"I just hate the fact that the samestyle that I really love is now being viewed as some crappy fashion fad."
Cinnamon_girl complains that because of this trend:
"What's the noticible difference between me and the average 'rockstar partying' hoodrat these days? Pretty much just my double 0s til I open my mouth."
BLACK*STAR*LINE says:
"F@$K posers and the Hot topic they came out of!"
It's amusing how 20-year-old kids are yelling about how “the mainstream” is going to “destroy our culture”! To a Gen-X-cusper like myself, this is the same hair-tearing that was going on back in the early ‘90s over the mainstream "taking over" “alternative culture.”
The funny thing (to an ancient 33-year-old such as myself) is the tremendous importance youngsters put on music and fashion choices: for all intents and purposes it takes on religious significance. Might I suggest that these folks are lacking something that bands and costumery can’t supply?
This is not to denigrate rock, or punk rock, or the afropunk community -- heck, I'm at least an associate member: I listen to punk rock, I've been to an Afropunk party, I joined the Afropunk message board. That's why I know about these sites to begin with. But this highlights the difference between people who view music as entertainment, and those who view it as identity.
BY THE WAY. As for the actual song "Party Like a Rock Star," well, I know one shouldn't expect too much artistically from crunk rap. But still, I can't be the only one to notice the half-assed way they try to signify "okay, now we're doing rock" by pasting a single looping electric guitar riff over an otherwise standard crunk beat. But the riff is one of those minor key, faux-classical things that have been R&B/rap cliche for the last ten years. In other words: the kids making this music are all mixed up; as one might expect in this subgenre, their musical vocabulary is trapped around preschool level; and they don't even know what rock 'n' roll sounds like -- they're just aping the sound everyone else in the rap game is putting out. They wouldn't know a blues scale from a coke scale. (Which might be appropriate, actually.) If you asked them, they'd probably tell you rock 'n' roll is a white music form and always has been.
On message boards like this and blogs like this a lot of black punk-rock kids vented their indignation that a bunch of crunk-rappers would dare rip off, and thus cheapen, their social signifiers and costumes without understanding the profound meaning behind it all!
On a blog at "Unofficially Afropunk," Chachalila gripes:
"I just hate the fact that the same
Cinnamon_girl complains that because of this trend:
"What's the noticible difference between me and the average 'rockstar partying' hoodrat these days? Pretty much just my double 0s til I open my mouth."
BLACK*STAR*LINE says:
"F@$K posers and the Hot topic they came out of!"
It's amusing how 20-year-old kids are yelling about how “the mainstream” is going to “destroy our culture”! To a Gen-X-cusper like myself, this is the same hair-tearing that was going on back in the early ‘90s over the mainstream "taking over" “alternative culture.”
The funny thing (to an ancient 33-year-old such as myself) is the tremendous importance youngsters put on music and fashion choices: for all intents and purposes it takes on religious significance. Might I suggest that these folks are lacking something that bands and costumery can’t supply?
This is not to denigrate rock, or punk rock, or the afropunk community -- heck, I'm at least an associate member: I listen to punk rock, I've been to an Afropunk party, I joined the Afropunk message board. That's why I know about these sites to begin with. But this highlights the difference between people who view music as entertainment, and those who view it as identity.
BY THE WAY. As for the actual song "Party Like a Rock Star," well, I know one shouldn't expect too much artistically from crunk rap. But still, I can't be the only one to notice the half-assed way they try to signify "okay, now we're doing rock" by pasting a single looping electric guitar riff over an otherwise standard crunk beat. But the riff is one of those minor key, faux-classical things that have been R&B/rap cliche for the last ten years. In other words: the kids making this music are all mixed up; as one might expect in this subgenre, their musical vocabulary is trapped around preschool level; and they don't even know what rock 'n' roll sounds like -- they're just aping the sound everyone else in the rap game is putting out. They wouldn't know a blues scale from a coke scale. (Which might be appropriate, actually.) If you asked them, they'd probably tell you rock 'n' roll is a white music form and always has been.
Monday, September 17, 2007
If "shiftless" is bad,
The n"shifty" must be good. Right?
And how come you never describe a really kind, altruistic person as ruthful? Or a really responsible person as feckful? How come you never hear of someone getting in low dudgeon?
And how come you never describe a really kind, altruistic person as ruthful? Or a really responsible person as feckful? How come you never hear of someone getting in low dudgeon?
Name every guy would love to have:
Dick Bangham
And as far as faux-bluesman stage names go, Root Boy Slim ain't bad. Neither is his music. ("Dare to Be Fat"?)
And as far as faux-bluesman stage names go, Root Boy Slim ain't bad. Neither is his music. ("Dare to Be Fat"?)
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
siamese band names
YOU KNOW -- TAKE names of famous bands or musicians and combine them for hours of fun! A few examples I came up with (most are doubles but some are triples -- and one of these I managed to cram together five artists):
Kool Keith & the Gang
Little Cliff Richard
Johnny Cash & Eddie Money
Mos Def Leppard
Notorious B.I.G. & Rich
Ice-T. Rex
Teena Marie Turner
Vanilla Ice Cube
Johann Sebastian Bacharach
Hal David Hasselhoff
Olivia Elton-John Oates
Ziggy Stardusty
New Mint Condition Edition
Diana VandRoss
Rick James Taylor
Widespread Panic! At the Disco
Modest Mouse on Mars
Stray Cat Stevens
Boy George Michael W. Jackson Browne
B.B. King Crimson
Pink Pink Floyd
Lil Wayne Kramer
Gang of Four Tops
Right Said Freddie Jackson
ABC/DC
Master P.eabo Bryson
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Yeah Yeah
TV on the Radiohead
Smokey Robinson & the Miracle Cure
Living Colour Me Badd
Henry & Sonny Rollins Band
Talib Kweller
Broken Social Distortion
Roger "Muddy Crystal" Waters
Velvet Underground Revolver
The English Beatles
The OK Go! Team
Loretta Lenny Kravitz
Right Said Freddie Mercury
New York Dolly Parton
LL DeBarge J
AC/dc Talk
Madonna Summer
Swing Out Sister Sledge
Blood, Sweat & Tears For Fears
Weird Al Jarreau
Kill Hannah Montana
Go ahead ... Create your own!
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Screwed up people make great art
If that's true -- and I don't doubt it is -- the members of Groovelily must be real screwed up. The name might conjure up the girl in the peasant dress doing the twirl dance in the parking lot at the Phish show, but they’re anything but that. They are just a high-quality pop band fronted by a girl who's a great singer/violinist (and who also happens to be a hot redhead), who make incredibly musical music without a lot of artifice, without trying to be arty. They take their art seriously, but not so much so that they forget that it's also fun. I discovered their site a few years ago while searching, I think, for the name of a long-lost friend. I don't know why I've not written about them until now.
While we're at it, here's some more violin rock to piss off rock purists.
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