Invader

Who Knew? Good Music on Myspace

As anyone who uses Myspace can tell you, entering pretty much anything into the "Interests: Music" section of your profile will subject you to a steady barrage of friend requests from bands (that use the site's search capabilities to seek out, as potential "friends," users who profess an interest in ostensibly similar bands).   Not surprisingly, nearly all of these bands are absolutely terrible.  But, every once in a while, one will come along that will make you believe that MySpace has a function other than giving you an excuse to take pictures of yourself, and keeping you posted as to how your friends scored on the "what Kitchen Appliance are you?"  survey.  And, what a pleasant change of pace it is, too, to have good music come find you, instead of vice versa.

So, here are the most intriguing bands I've "befriended" in the past six months or so:

Placebot:  It boggles my mind that this guy isn't already famous.  But, then again, when you're making the type of music he does - Kompakt-esque ambient pop - and you're based out of Baton Rouge, Louisana...  I mean, honestly, I've often wondered how you attract the attention of a label, when you're this type of act, given that you can't really go on tour, and what you're doing isn't exactly next-big-thing-ish.  Perhaps I'll learn one day, once this guy is signed to Warp.

                                                                                             

Mike Tamburo:  It's sort of hard to pin this guy down, other than to say he clearly appreciates all that   drones.  The live recording he has on his profile is reminiscent of the Appalachian-tinged ragas of Pelt / Jack Rose.  But the other, (presumably) studio recordings are much more relaxed, and expansive, and wouldn't be out of place on the Kranky label.

I Have Eaten The City: I know that to anyone under, say, forty, "jazz" is a four-letter word - and particularly in reference to contemporary jazz, which is generally associated with elevators and dentist's offices.  But, in fact, the genre isn't completely given over to Kenny G and his ilk.  For instance, take I Have Eaten The City, who like their contemporaries the Necks, seem to have noticed that on any number of classic jazz records, there are a few seconds at the very beginning - in which you briefly hear the band tuning, running through scales, and generally making a wonderfully cacophonous mess (presumably tacked on to replicate the live experience of a band performing) - that are in fact the best part of the entire album.  And who have managed to take that fleeting, terrifically chaotic moment, and stretch it into entire songs.

zelienople: Just when I thought Chicago's music scene had died along with post-rock, up pops zelienople (who have actually been around for several years, on several respected below-the-radar labels, including 267 Lattajjaa and PseudoArcana).  The songs on their profile include two doses of  ambient, melancholy drone ("You Got Shot Down" and "Ship That Goes Down"... "down" being the optimal word in both these titles), and a song ("Softkiller") that - and I mean this in the most complimentary way possible - resembles a chilled-out Kasabian.

The Eavesdroppers:  I get the sense these guys haven't been around for very long, but I like the direction in which they're headed, which is reminiscent of the No-Neck Blues Band, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice, and the rest of "New Weird America."

Back in Black

Back in black, I hit the sack
I been too long, I'm glad to be back
Yes I'm, let loose from the noose
That's kept me hanging about
I keep looking at the sky cause it's gettin' me high
Forget the hearse cause I'll never die
I got nine lives, cat's eyes
Using every one of them and runnin' wild

'Cause I'm back
Yes, I'm back, well I'm back
Yes, I'm back
Well, I'm back back
Well, I'm back in black
Yes, I'm back in black

AC/DC - Back in Black

Yes, the site is back, and in black, as it were.   I'm back from the dead, after 14 months.  I'd love to say that I was off writing a book, or curing some disease, or teaching children how to read in some primitive corner of the world, like Equatorial Africa, or Bangladesh, or the Florida Panhandle.  But, really, I was just bored with the notion of blogging.  However, eventually, I found myself yelling at the television, or the radio, or the newspaper, or the internet, or passing cars, or the sky, or vending machines, or... well, you get the idea... just a little too often, and decided I needed to get this site up and running again, if only to keep the seething ball of rage inside me from growing to the point where it's able to begin subsuming entire organ systems.

As for the nature of the site... I'll probably still write about politics, but there'll be much more of an emphasis on music, including, hopefully, some MP3s.  I have too short an attention span to write exclusively about one topic, so I'm hoping that diversifying the range of subjects encompassed by this blog will keep me from posting once every three weeks, as was the case in the months before my hiatus.

So, welcome back, to my few faithful readers, and welcome aboard to any new suckers visitors.   I promise I won't let you down again... as much.

P.S.  "Back in Black" has to be one of the weirdest songs in the history of rock, lyrically speaking, seeing as it's Brian Johnson essentially claiming that he's a reincarnated Bon Scott (for those of you unfamiliar with AC/DC, Johnson replaced Scott, the group's longtime singer, after he drank himself to death in early 1980 (not really that bad a time to off yourself, in retrospect, seeing that as in doing so, you would avoid experiencing the cultural abyss that was the 80s) ).  Not that I'm knocking this move - rock is all about bold statements, and there's nothing quite so ballsy as claiming that you are not merely the replacement - but in fact the resurrection - of the guy whose job you took.  But, could you imagine, say, if Nirvana, after Kurt Cobain killed himself, went out and found someone who resembled, in voice and in appearance, their former singer (like that one kid from Silverchair, or that other kid from the Vines - funny how the two biggest bands to come out of Australia in the past ten years were both Monkees-esque Nirvana knock-offs) and continued on, while claiming their new frontman was the rebirth of their former one?  It's not a totally apt analogy, since Scott wasn't the band's main songwriter, but, still.

But, don't get me wrong.  I'm not knocking AC/DC.  In fact, I'd say they're one of the only still-active "classic" rock bands that I would actually go see in concert.  Normally, I try to avoid seeing acts far past their prime, for the same reason I don't believe in open-casket funerals: I'd like my final glimpse of someone, or some band, to be of them still full of life.  (And, sorry, I don't care how much the critics say that Mick and Keith have still got it, I'd prefer if my memory of the Rolling Stones performing live is at Altamont in 1970, or Madison Square Garden in 1971 (albeit on video, in Gimme Shelter, and Get Your Ya-Yas Out, respectively - I was around four when they released their last worthwhile record), not at Key Arena in 2005.  I refuse to allow my memory of the swaggering, debauched, Glimmer Twins of the early 70s to be replaced by the ambling, dessicated Geritol Twins of the early 2000s).  But AC/DC have this odd, timeless quality about them, having been, in essence, writing the same song over and over since their mid-seventies inception.  Barring differences in fidelity (and the aforementioned change of singer), it's hard to differentiate a song off of Stiff Upper Lip (their most recent release) from one off of TNT (one of their first).  You'd think that perhaps they'd have worked in drum-machines and synths in the 80s, or given the whole "alternative" thing a go in the 90s, but no.  And who can really blame them, given such a signature sound.  Consider that plenty of bands rip off the Beatles, or the Stones, without a complaint from fans or reviewers, but if a band dares to imitate Angus Young's unmistakable syncopated guitar leads, they're written off instantly as an AC/DC knockoff (ahem, Jet, ahem).   They've got a de facto patent on their songwriting, so why should they give it up?

P.P.S.  If you were wondering, the above are AC/DC Back in Black lounge pants (because nothing says laying on your couch eating Cheetos and watching Must-See Thursday quite like "You Shook Me All Night Long," say) available at WebUndies.com 

Who needs taxes when we can just keep spending.

George Bush on tonight's debate:

"What I'm going to tell the people tomorrow night is we're not going to go back to the days of tax and spend," Bush told supporters in Arizona...

Yep. We're just going to stick with a policy even the freaking Heritage Foundation, for God's sake, acknowledges is "spend and spend."

Reports of adolescent girls turning over minivans in the suburbs.

Congratulations, Storm.

When you live in a town as title-deprived as this one (the Sonics, Seahawks, and Mariners have, in a combined 93 seasons, won all of one championship), you take whatever you can get.

Basement-Dwellers for Bush

The Seattle P-I has this thrilling exclusive:

Politically, the Mariners bat from the right.

In a completely unscientific poll with a margin of error of 100 percent, we polled Mariners who are U.S. citizens and were handy, and asked who they supported for president. The results: Bush 13, Kerry 2, undecided 2.

Is it really a surprise that a bunch of underperforming millionaires who only work six months out of the year support the President?

Anyhow, the article also contains this priceless bit of humor:

"I think about what happened on 9/11, and I think about what would have happened if Al Gore had been in charge," said reliever J.J. Putz, who hails from the important swing state of Michigan. "This country would be in shambles."

Your last name says it all, J.J.

Indie is the new Hair Metal

A few friends have written me asking why I don't care for the Arcade Fire album. The answer is that, while I don't think it's out-and-out bad (I'll grant that the songs are pretty well written), I just don't think it's all that interesting. Essentially, it's the same whiny, jingly-jangly pop that's pretty much defined "indie rock" for the past ten years or so, but with a few more instruments thrown in. You know that album where Metallica plays with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra? The Arcade Fire (and Broken Social Scene, and The Polyphonic Spree, and all the other orchestral-rock acts out there at the moment) are just the lo-fi equivalent.

Unfortunately, in fact, taking formulaic indie pop, adding one or two new elements, and then trying to sell it as something other than, well, formulaic indie pop, has become commonplace the past few years. God knows how many bands I've seen the past few years who've been advertised as "post-punk," that turn out to be just unimaginitive garage rock with a keyboard and dancey beats thrown in - and, of course, Strokes-ish matching outfits (probably the most egregious example of this is the absolutely wretched Hint Hint - before I saw them, a friend described them to me as "Gang of Four"-esque; "cookie-cutter emo with a keyboard thrown in"-esque is a bit more apt). And of course, there's the above-mentioned trend, in which bands outfit otherwise so-so songs with horns, strings, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, dogs barking out Jingle Bells, etc. Anything to distract people from the fact that they're listening to the same album they've already heard a hundred times before, from a hundred different bands.

The problem, I'm afraid, is that the sound that's come to define "indie" - nasal vocals, strummy guitar, etc. - is pretty well played out at this point (it is to a 27-year-old fogey like me, anyhow). And ultimately, all the orchestras and keyboards and dance-beats in the world can't save it.

Recently, a friend explained to me Tony Wilson's (founder of Factory Records) theory of musical change, which posits that revolutionary upheaval, in the music world, occurs every 12-13 years. So, given that it's been 12-13 years since 1992, and the ascendance of the current "indie" sound, here's to hoping something comes along soon to wipe away, a la what punk did to arena rock, and what Nirvana did to hair metal, all the Hint Hints, and the Arcade Fires, and every other band beating that nerd-bespectacled, cardigan-wearing, dead horse named Indie.

Projection

Tired. Pathetic.

Just someone else complaining about Pitchfork...

Pitchfork gets their wanking hand limbered up for the release of Interpol's next album by jizzing all over the Arcade Fire, yet another Canadian orchestral snooze-rock band in the vein of Broken Social Scene.

Over the past few years, I've found myself increasingly disinterested in pop-oriented indie rock, and the spate of would-be ELO-revivalists, making bombastic, yet utterly dull, symphony-rock is one of the trends that's been most responsible for this lack of caring.

Not that I don't think bands can't successfully work in lush instrumentation. A few that come to mind, who've accomplished this feat, are the aforementioned ELO (at times), the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and more recently, Elliot Smith and Pulp.

Rather, it's that these contemporary bands seem to somehow think that they can compensate for a lack of decent songwriting by adding more instruments. As if throwing in a French Horn or two is going to somehow make up for a song being bland as instant coffee.

Anyhow -- another brief, Pitchfork related item (yes, like most people, I hate them, yet I read them anyway - I've been told that this was the attitude a lot of people had toward Rolling Stone, back when it actually sort of mattered, in the late-60s/early-70s): For once, they actually pay attention to a band worth paying attention to, and even manage to give them a good review.

Initially, when I saw that they were reviewing Gang Gang Dance's album, I assumed that they were going to trash it, given that it doesn't really meet either of the two criteria that merit Pitchfork's approval, those being 1) referencing the "right" bands (for example, a year ago, it was Gang of Four; I'm not really sure who it is at the moment - which I take as a positive development; I welcome any signal that we're moving away from early-millenial retro-itis) or 2) having all the trappings of a "great" album (lush instrumentation, long, complicated songs) - this then forcing their reviewers to give it the thumbs up, no matter how mediocre it in fact is, presumably out of a fear of other critics calling them out for not recognizing said album's "great"-ness (I call this Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome - the aforementioned Arcade Fire album is one example of this; The Fiery Furnaces' album is another).

But, no, they actually lavish it with quite a bit of praise (giving it an almost Trailofdeadian 8.6 rating). Which I'd like to second. From the first time I saw them in January 2003 (I still have the flier even), when they just absolutely floored me, GGD has been one of my favorite bands, and are one of the things I miss most about New York (they are, at least at the moment, somewhat averse to touring). And the thing is, as good as this record is, it's really nothing compared to what they have coming up. I say this because in May, I used my minidisc to record one of their shows, and the CD I made of it has rarely left my stereo in the intervening months. And according to one of the people at their label, the show was a warm-up for a studio session, which should result in a record that'll see the light of day sometime in 2005. So, you know, keep your eyes peeled. God knows when it comes out I'll be blathering about it here.

Here's a link to more music from GGD

"Masterdebater" Remastered.

A quick follow-up on my post "George W. Bush: Masterdebater," in light of the recent news that the President only wishes to participate in two out of the three proposed debates:

I stand by my position that Bush is a skillful debater, in the sense that he's quite successful at coming off as a "regular guy," castigated by his uppity, book-larned lib'rul opponent. However, I also think it likely that Kerry is aware of Bush's "poor li'l ol' me" strategem (given that he's used it twice now, against both Ann Richards and Al Gore), and that, moreover, the Bush team understands that Kerry is familar with the President's preferred mode-of-attack (or mode-of-appearing-to-be-unfairly-attacked, as it were). In which case, they're likely looking to minimize the chance that Kerry will short-circuit Bush's scheme, and cause the "regular guy" to look not sympathy-deserving, but merely like a simp.

The Tri-Cities: The Bomb

I'm back from several days in Washington state's Tri-Cities (Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland), where I helped my brother get ready for his move to Los Angeles. He's spent the past two years in Kennewick, working as an in-the-field camera operator for the local NBC affiliate, and now he's moving up to the big leagues (and hence, at his going away party, I dedicated a karaoke performance of Rush's "Limelight" to him. This delighted a few of the locals, one of whom commented "I didn't know anyone who came of age after the 1980s knew about Rush." I assured him there were a devoted few among my generation dedicated to keeping the memory of dorky 70s prog alive.)

Some interesting facts about the Tri-Cities: It is home to the largest nuclear waste dump in the Western Hemisphere, as well as a high school with what may be the most un-P.C. mascot ever - one that puts all the "Indians," and "Chiefs," and "Tribes" of the world to utter shame. I refer here to Richland High, home of the "Bombers" - a name chosen to honor the nearby Hanford nuclear plant, which supplied the plutonium for the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. In fact, in case there exists any doubt as to what their name refers, their "mascot," if you will, is a mushroom cloud. No joke. Makes you wonder if the high school near Dow Chemical's former napalm manufacturing facility has, as its mascot, the "Fightin' Flesh-melters."

Suffice to say, my brother is pretty happy to be moving on.