Girl in a Cage

I called it quits at Brain Drain

One thing I've heard about kids today is that they download everything, and therefore have more of an allegiance to songs than to artists. I was thinking that this might be a good thing--it might free me from feeling embarrassed that I really like a song by a band with a name as stupid as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

(Just as an aside, listening to that song again, it strikes me that The Feelies are probably neck and neck with Gang of Four as the most-ripped-off band of the '00s. I'm pulling for the Feelies, since I never really liked Gang of Four. I suppose it's also possible that all these bands that sound to me like they're ripping off the Feelies actually think they've found a new way to rip off the Velvet Underground and don't even know that the Feelies beat them to it.)

But isn't following artists part of the fun? I mean, I'm excited when new product from Jack White or Belle and Sebastian or Frank Black or any of the bands I currently like arrives, because I'm interested to see what they'll do next.

And yet...when you follow any artist, they always end up breaking your heart. Either they break up too soon, leaving you pining for that next album that's never coming, or else they stay together too long, and put out a really crappy album that makes you break up with them, or, else an album that's actually kind of okay, but shows you that they're headed downhill and the next album is going to suck, and you break up with them early to avoid that heartbreak. Or, worst of all, they put out an album that makes you think the next one might suck, but then you buy the next one anyway, hoping against hope that it'll be a return to form, but of course it isn't.

But maybe those breakups don't have to sting so bad. After all, you'll always have the first album. And great bands are like buses. If you wait around long enough, you'll eventually see one you want.

She thinks she's the passionate one

I downloaded The Raconteurs' debut single, "Steady As She Goes." It's a cool song, and I couldn't figure out at first why I found it so striking. Then I realized, hey, that's an actual bass behind Jack White's vocals. I think it sounds great. My guess is that, since this is a side project, Jack isn't bringing his A material, but his B material is still damn good. And of course I am hometown proud that the Cincinnatians from the Greenhornes are in this band. I think they must now join Bootsy Collins atop the list of coolest Cincinnatians. (I am on a different list, along with Sarah Jessica Parker, of most glamorous former Cincinnatians.)

Also, inspired by the praise heaped upon them by the narrator of King Dork (check out the Chi-Mo playlist here),
I downloaded a few songs by Sweet, or possibly The Sweet. "ACDC" is brilliant, and the intro to "Ballroom Blitz" is just so incongruous in such a rockin' tune. It's got the whole Alvin and the Chipmunks "are you ready fellas?" thing. Weird. And what is a ballroom blitz anyway? Is it good or bad if the man in the back says everyone attack and it turns into a ballroom blitz? I mean, it sounds menacing--everybody stops breathing at one point--but could anything so rockin' possibly be bad?

And whoa Nelly did the folks who wrote the Rocky Horror songs rip off Sweet in an almost criminal fashion. It's too bad, because, coming late to the Sweet party, I listen to the songs and half expect to get hit with toast or have some drunken guy in fishnet hose yell "Where's your neck?!!" from a few rows behind me.

Game over

I got the videogame itch the other day--spent a long time wandering around EB games, just browsing, hoping I'd come to my senses. I did, finally, and got out clean, having bought nothing.

This got me thinking about video games. As much as you read stuff about how they are this great exciting new art form, the medium of tomorrow, blah blah (this would be a good place to insert a link, but I'm too lazy), I find videogames pretty weak as a form of entertainment. This isn't to say they're not entertaining--oh, they're plenty entertaining, pal--it's just that as I look back at time I've spent playing video games, it feels like wasted time in a way that reading, watching a movie, watching tv, or even doing chess puzzles doesn't. (of course I used to do chess puzzles while pretending to take notes in faculty meetings, so that time would have been wasted anyway.)

I don't know if it's just me, and the fact that, as an adult, I've typically played video games at times of high stress (and so they have that kind of good/bad association that some people probably have with a 3-day tequila bender or something), or if it's really just that they are kind of lame. I mean, even tv gives you stuff to talk about--I can't really picture having a conversation like, "whoa, how about that part where you have to press x and then triangle!" Maybe it would be different if I hung out with a lot of people who played games. Perhaps such converstaions actually take place. I guess there's something about video games that just feels kinda masturbatory. Maybe it's the sitting alone and making rapid movements with the hands. I don't know.

Canon hits target

It's pretty much an article of faith among music geeks that the popular music canon is deeply flawed. "Oh yeah," we'll say, " 'Trying to Get To You' is way better than 'Jailhouse Rock,'" or "Nirvana is nothing but a third-rate Squirrel Bait," or "Too Tough to Die is really the best Ramones album." etcetera, etcetera. I believe I actually committed a few of these to print in It Takes a Worried Man (still available! Buy buy buy and keep it in print!). Of course, what anybody is saying when they say something like this is "I have better taste than the rest of the world," or, more simply, "I'm smarter and better than everybody else." Gosh, it seems kind of pathetic all boiled down like that, doesn't it?

Ahem. Anyway, my asssumption that the canon is usaully wrong was challenged recently. I noted that Belle and Sebastian lifted the "Been Caught Stealing" bass line, and this made me seek out that song for download, so I grabbed "Jane Says" and "Pets" while I was at it, and I realized that, in the case of Perry Farrell, the canon has it exactly right. Those are the only Jane's Addiction or Porno for Pyros songs you ever hear, and, strangely, they are the only Jane's Addiction or Porno for Pyros songs that don't totally suck. So, in this case, the canon is exactly right. And this got me wondering if there is any other artist with such a wide disparity in the quality of their songs. Because all three of those are really great, brilliant songs. And the rest of the output is just awful. Not a lot of middle ground there.

This got me wondering if there are any other artists with two or three songs that you might consider essential and a whole bunch of other ones that you might consider unlistenable. Hmmmmm....

The Law Boat

Continuing our string of live-action Disney movies from the 60's and 70's, we watched The North Avenue Irregulars this weekend. Everybody enjoyed it--what's not to love about a movie that's half car chases? It featured Cloris Leachman, a very young and thin Edward Herrmann, and that siren of the 70's, that vixen of room 222, Karen Valentine. I had completely forgotten about her and about the fact that I had a mad crush on her when I was seven until we watched that movie. Wasn't she also on the Love Boat like every other week?

Of course, if she were a sitcom star from the 80's or 90's, she'd probably appear on one of the Law and Order shows, thus activating the ironclad Law and Order rule: if you recognize somebody, they did it. On last night's Special Autism Unit, for example (gotta find a new nickname for that one, since it's only half D'Onofrio now), in the early scenes said, "I know that congressman from somewhere", and sure enough, by the end he was in cuffs. Same deal with Elizabeth Berkely, Michael Gross, etc.

H for Hissy Fit

I had no plans to see V for Vendetta despite the fact that it has the coolest posters I've seen in a long time. For one thing, I'm not really part of the Alan Moore cult--I like some of his stuff, but people are always saying how he's "elevating" comics, and I like comics because they are lurid and cheesy. So you really shouldn't try to "elevate", for example, a title like Swamp Thing. Just my opinion.
For another thing, movies in which good-lookin' actresses shave their heads simply don't have a good track record: "Alien 3," "G.I Jane," "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."
Finally, the involvement of the Wachowski brothers, who believed the hype about themselves and followed an entertaining pastiche of Philip K. Dick ideas and Hong Kong action with one of the most turgid pieces of crap I've ever seen. I just imagine them sitting around going, "you know, we made an entertaining sci-fi action movie, and now we're makin' two more. And you know what every action franchise needs?" Pause, and then they say together, as they high-five: "Cornel West!" Ugh.
But then David Denby got into such a state about V for Vendetta here that I almost want to see it now.

(There's a nice response to Denby's review here , but it neglects ot mention one of the most hateful consequences of Britain's Section 28 law, which criminalized the "promotion of homosexuality." It led directly to Billy Bragg's a capella number "Tender Comrade", which is earnest and incredibly terrible and which he had the bad judgment to do as an encore when I saw him live in '88.)

Skimpy Bonus Material Sucks

Well, there's simply no pleasing me. A while back I inveighed against bonus material, which is usually crap that was cut out for a good reason, or else incredibly boring behind-the-scenes stuff you didn't want to know. (The Bring it On DVD has an especially horrible director's commentary, all stuff along the lines of, "we had a lot of extras for this scene...")

But then I went and bought the Indiana Jones box set, because we rode the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland (fan-freakin'-tastic, by the way) and the kids had never seen the movies. (So far we've watched the first and third ones, because who the hell needs Temple of Doom anyway?) So there's a bonus disc with some relatively boring behind-the-scenes stuff--apparently the stunts were done by stuntmen!--and some mildly interesting making-of documentaries. And that's it! No commentary at all on the movies! And, I mean, you don't really need commentary for the likes of Bring it On, but these are classics, man! I can't believe Spielberg couldn't spare 6 hours to sit there and talk about the movies. Ripoff!

Three singles and an album

I am, on principle, resistant to next-big-thing-ism, and I also hate bands with cute/stupid names, especially bands with cute/stupid names that write songs with cute/stupid names. Having said all that, I can't get that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah song "Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood" out of my brain. What I really love is that the guy sounds like he really can't quite be bothered to actually sing the song. Weird. Good.

I'm also in love with the Datsuns' "Harmonic Generator", which might rival the Minus 5's "Lyrical Stance" for moronic genius. I can't reproduce the lyrics here, because the only one that's really popped out so far is, "it's been sixteen days since I saw your ass." So, I suppose it's kind of a tragedy. What's a harmonic generator anyway? Is that a real thing? Is it like a sonic reducer?

Last year I bought the Vines album largely on the strength of "TV Pro," which I loved. It came up on the shuffle the other day, and it struck me that it's a total Nirvana ripoff, in that it's got the whole quiet/loud thing they stole from the Pixies, and if you can make out the unintelligible lyrics, they turn out to be inane. But it's actually better than a Nirvana song.

And now, my report on Belle and Sebastian's "The Life Pursuit". Well, I like it a lot, with some reservations. The best songs are as good as the best songs on any B&S record (I call them B&S, 'cause that's what we B&S fans call B&S)--"Another Sunny Day" in particular is brilliant. I'm a little unsure about the whole "spot the influence" thing, though. You know--"Oh, they're doing Brian Ferry fronting T. Rex here"; "Gee, they built this song around the "Been Caught Stealing" bass line; this one sounds like "Jackie Blue"; hey, that's a melody line from "How Deep is Your Love". They're all good songs, it's just that...I dunno. I feel like they seem a little tentative on this album, like they're not as confident in the material as they've been on previous albums. And I worry about the stylistic grab bag thing. Prince pulled it off on "Sign O The Times," and the Blasters did it on the underrated "Hard Line" (Love that record--it's like, "oh, by the way, when we said American Music, we meant all music from America. Here's the zydeco number"), but otherwise... Well, I'm afraid this might be their "Sandinista." There, I said it. Except it's better than "Sandinista," if only because it's not that long.

Odds and ends

I totally get why Matisyahu is a big deal. I mean, a guy from a vaguely nutty religious sect makes a bunch of reggae songs whose religious messages will be ignored, misunderstood, or trivialized by the white stoners who buy them. That's like never happened before!

Caught the new Pink Panther last weekend. It was an almost perfectly mediocre movie. If it had been any better, it would have been good, and if it had been any worse, it would have been bad. Kevin Kline was wasted, but there were a few good gags. It's kinda hard to believe that Steve Martin was like some edgy comedian when I was a kid.

I read Frank Portman's King Dork. It was one of the best books I've read in a long time. Kind of like a less sociopathic version of C.D. Payne's Youth in Revolt. If you were dateless and rock-obsessed at any point in high school, or if you just want to read an incredibly fun, absorbing book about a dateless rock-obessed teen, go buy it when it comes out next month. It was really a joy to read.

Importance of Being Earnest

As is usually the case when there are no orcs involved, I didn't see any of the best picture nominees. I heard some good things about Crash. Everybody says it's very earnest. Of course, if being earnest were the same as being good, the Indigo Girls would be the greatest band ever.

It's weird how, given how much we prize authenticity and earnestness, that it has so little to do with quality. Like, for example, The Mooney Suzuki, in a completely cynical, commercial move, went into the studio with Avril Lavigne's producers and made their best album, Alive and Amplified. (Strange, though, in that it succeeds on an artistic level, as much as you can say "an artistic level" about a record with songs like "Loose and Juicy" "Naked Lady" and "Messin in the Dressing Room", but it wasn't actually a hit.) Kiss, if you believe Gene Simmons (not sure why you should, except he seems to be less full of shit on the subject of money than anything else), has been a completely cynical moneymaking machine from day one. But this doesn't dim the brilliance of, say, "Deuce". I mean, "get up and get your grandma outta here." No idea what that song is about, but they had me at get your grandma outta here.

So does earnestness ever translate into quality? Sure--how about "One Tin Soldier"? Ummm, okay, maybe not. Ummm...Paul Theroux really seemed like he wanted to make a point in "Kowloon Tong". That was earnest. And it blew. Okay, okay, um, wait--"Rockin' in the Free World"! Okay, so earnestness doesn't necessarily equate to suckitude.