SXSW

One of the best festivals that Austin has to offer is of course, the city-wide continuous party that is South By Southwest.  I missed it last year and this time around I was hoping to do it up right-friends and family coming into town and I was going to take time off of work to devote myself fully to the craziness that SXSW.  However, now I have a new job and was too shy to ask off work right after I started a couple weeks ago, so I'll just be going after work cramming as much in around my 8-to-5 as possible. 

Side note: Did anyone hear about the SXSW mini-riot last year?  I totally missed this until a couple days ago when KUT was talking about the "heightened security measures" on account of this at a Death From Above show.

 Photo via the NuNomad Blog (17 places to not miss in Austin), by Visualist Images

O'Death

We ventured to eastern Tennessee last August to attend the rockabilly/roots music festival, Muddy Roots. It was nice to go back to my "neck of the woods" in the Appalachians and I found this fabulous band that I can not seem to get enough of; NYC based, O'Death, are a mixture of Appalachian folk, a little punk, and major bass drums which make me incredibly happy.

Whitney Houston's Flaming Star

Wow. Whitney Houston passed away this weekend; a rather sad passing to a troubled life.

Songs About Food

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

illustration by John James Audubon

I love the Holidays and Thanksgiving kicks off the whole happy season--plus, it's also my birthday nearby (I'm turning "almost-thirty" for the very last time). In celebration I've gotten together some of my favorite songs about food...

Saturday's Playlist

I've been camped out online today and have come across several excellent songs. I figured it would be more fun to see the music videos too. They're all whimsical. I think that's my new favorite word. Whimsical.

"Hail Mary". Pomplamoose.

"Just A Boy". Angus & Julia Stone.

"L'Autre Bout Du Monde". Emily Loizeau.

"Crooked Legs". The Acorn.

Just

I know this is a bit old, but I was going clearing out all my old emails (I've kept them since 2004) and found that a friend had sent this to me ages ago when I was super into graffiti as an art historical movement. And well, it's held up over the years; it's still damn cool.



One of the great Radiohead tracks and drummer Phil Selway's favourite song on 'The Bends', 'Just' combines self-loathing lyrics, a particular viscous guitar riff and middle-eight to die for. For his cover Mark Ronson not only enlisted the help of the formidable Daptones horn section (The Dap Kings) but Alex Greenwald, the lead singer of Phantom Planet (best known for 'California', the theme to 'The OC').

A dynamite combination of snappy horns and dusty drum breaks, 'Just' belongs to the cover canon of Quantic Soul Orchestra's 'Get a Move On', Alice Russell's 'Seven Nation Army' and the Daptone's own 'What (Have You Done For Me Lately'. The man behind 'Just' is one of the most sought after DJs in the world and, as one half of AllIDo Records, Ronson is currently working with Chicago rapper Rhymefest, Australian soul singer Daniel Merryweather and fabulous pop goddess Christina Aguilera. His cover of 'Just' won early support from Gilles Peterson, Zane Lowe and Jo Whiley on Radio One as well as Eddy Temple-Morris on XFM, making this one of the most exciting BBE releases in years.

Interiors of Music Fame

K sent me a link to an article on apartment therapy that of course, I loved. It is 70's pop stars photographed in the homes of their parents/grandparents. I really do have a thing for 60/70's musicians. I especially love reading the biographies of their girlfriends (Marianne Faithfull, Suze Rotolo, Patti Boyd)

Frank Zappa

Grace Slick

Elton John

Donovan, Jackson 5

David Crosby

Eric Clapton

If I Got a New Tattoo

When I was growing up The Point was one of my 'videos' I got to watch when I visited my dad. When I got older I would ask my friends if they had ever seen the film but most people had never heard of it. This seemed strange to me because it is animated just like Yellow Submarine and is narrated by Ringo Starr--I thought these two points would cause The Point to live on forever in the psyche of a Beatle fan. Not until two years ago (?) when the film was re-released did I find it again! And then to find that Harry Nilson wrote the story and the music? It was heaven!

Here's the booklet from the CD I found at the UT library. I totally love the illustration style of the comic. I figure that IF I ever got another tattoo then I would have to have the image be in the style of another awesome graphic illustrator, and I think I have found a winner in these drawings below. Trick is finding a symbol I like. And also a special occasion, a reason, a place, etc, etc.







A sample from the film...really the soundtrack that Nilsson wrote is awesome. I think this is my favorite song right now. (ah! there was even a play of The Point in London starring two guys from The Monkees)

Indian Thriller

This is the most beautiful thing I have seen in three weeks. Priceless! Priceless!



My mom sent this to me today and I couldn't stop laughing. It's the Jackson moves interpreted in the Bollywood style that does me in.

Betty Davis-Band Style prt 4

While working at the record store I come upon some really interesting album covers...and some really, really shitty ones too. The finding above is a result of one of these serendipitous findings. Betty Davis. Oh how I do love her.

Her music is unapologetic. Her style is amazing. And she's from fucking North Carolina! I love it. I'm always ready to be a fan of a fellow NC native.

Originally from Durham, she moved up to NYC when she was 16 to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology--she was coming to music already with a background in fashion. She was buddies with Sly & the Family Stone and Jimi Hendrix. She married Miles Davis when she was 23 and he was 46. She introduced him to her hip crowd and shortly thereafter, he turned out Bitches Brew and other more boundary-pushing albums. While didn't last more than a year, it did encourage her to begin her own music career...eh, voila! She only made 3 albums which didn't get much airplay because of her suggestive lyrics.

I totally love her thigh-high silver boots, the lingerie look, her hot pants...everything about this woman just scream bad-ass. And her legs! They last forever! Love, total love.

Klaus Nomi-Band Style prt #3

Klaus Nomi...

Klaus Sperber (January 24, 1944 - August 6, 1983), better known as Klaus Nomi, was a German countertenor noted for remarkable vocal performances and an unusual, otherworldly, elfin stage persona. Nomi is remembered for bizarrely theatrical live performances, heavy make-up, unusual costumes, and a highly stylized signature hairdo which flaunted a receding hairline. His songs were equally unusual, ranging from synthesizer-laden interpretations of classic opera to covers of 1960s pop standards like Chubby Checker's "The Twist" and Lou Christie's "Lightnin' Strikes".
~wikipedia



Why I think it's successful: The elements incorporated within the music itself--late '70's dance, glam, and opera music --demand both a persona and a performance that is as juxtaposed as the sound. The music is elevated above the mundane and the look that Nomi created for it mirrors that perfectly. In the video clip above for example: Nomi's Gothic interpretation of Elizabethan hair and make-up, his robotic dance, the plasticine outfit--the shoes!--and the androidenal African dancers all combine to enhance the vibe of the music without being distracting and obnoxious. It's like a full-body massage version of a concert experience= engages all the senses.

CoCoRosie-Band Style prt #2

CoCoRosie is going to have to be on my fashionable musicians list. The two sisters are traditionally pretty, but they occasionally subvert that beauty; see round-faced sister's mustache...can't tell if it's real or not (I'm thinking yes?) They play around with different looks such as the Gothic refiguring of Seurat's Sunday Afternoon at La Grande Jatte, or Native American witch sisters. Their style goes along with their eerily whimsical music--it meshes and I dig.
Side note: Miucchia Prada sought out CoCoRosie for inspiration for her Spring 2008 collection.

Adam & the Ants~Band Style prt 1

Somewhat recently I discovered Adam Ant, lead singer of the English New Wave band, Adam and the Ants. They had several hits song in England during the 80's and was once voted Sexiest Man in America by MTV viewers. Adam and the Ants were highly theatrical and viewed the music/image as one and the same. I think that the music itself it a bit shit but I do love their style and the directions in which they take their music videos. They seem to have a monopoly on the swashbuckling glam genre. It should come as no surprise that he went on to become an actor.

I would like to preface what I am about to write by saying that I am not a musician. I sew. I dance. But I do nothing more musical than sing-a-longs.

That said, when you get up on stage, you take on a persona that's different from your everyday behavior. I think it's most clearly stated by the scientific community: the act of observation alters the observed state. There is also going to be an image precedence already set. Crooners look more polished. Metal brings out the metal against a black background. Americana calls for jeans and a buttondown (perferably plaid) shirt. Indie music requires fitted jeans and a cheeky t-shirt. Bottom line is that I don't think there is any perfectly natural state of affairs when it comes to being a performer, that it's all calculated to some degree. And if this is true then I don't see why there should be more effort and originality when it comes to band dressing.

For Tortured Evening Play A Little Torture Lite

Excerpts from "Welcome to 'the disco'" article in UK Guardian.

According to US military authorities, it was God himself who first wrote the strategy of "torture by music" into the field manual - by turning the amplifier up to 11 on the enemy. "Joshua's army used horns to strike fear into the hearts of the people of Jericho," retired US Air Force Lt-Col Dan Kuehl told the St Petersburg Times. "His men might not have been able to break down literal walls with their trumpets, but the noise eroded the enemy's courage." Kuehl, who teaches psychological operations (or psyops) at Fort McNair's National Defense University in Washington DC, added, "Maybe those psychological walls were what really crumbled."

Despite this, to date, the Pentagon's semanticists have achieved their purpose, and many people think that torture by music is little more than a rather irritating enforced encounter with someone else's iPod. Binyam Mohamed, the British resident who is still held in Guantánamo Bay, knows a bit about such torture. The CIA rendered him to Morocco, where his torturers repeatedly took a razor blade to his penis throughout an 18-month ordeal. He could anticipate physical pain, he said, and know that it would eventually end. But the experience of slipping into madness as a result of torture by music was something quite different. One Guantánamo interrogator blithely estimated that it would take about four days to "break" someone, if the interrogation sessions were interspersed with strobe lights and loud music.

It is time that those musicians who oppose the use of music to torture fellow human beings made some noise - and they are beginning to. This year's Meltdown festival at London's South Bank, which Massive Attack are curating, has highlighted the issue of torture by music. Projections showing the horror of renditions and secret prisons will be used on their world tour.

Deicide's Fuck Your God is said to be a favourite for military interrogators, and the song topped the infamous "torture playlist" compiled by the American investigative magazine Mother Jones. It is worth noting that the lyrics are in fact anti-Christian, just as Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA and Eminem's White America, also claimed as torture tracks, contain anti-establishment messages. Sometimes, people simply misunderstand lyrics: in 1984, Ronald Reagan tried to co-opt Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA as a patriotic anthem to get himself re-elected, despite the song being about government betrayal of Vietnam veterans. The Barney theme song is also a Guantánamo favorite.

Glukoza

Kevin showed this video to me the other day and I really liked it. This hot Russian songbird became popular because she always makes these CGI music videos. It rocks. Watch it.

Fun Odds and Ends For a Thursday

fantoche from blu on Vimeo.

Blu draws these stop-motion animations on the walls of galleries or on the exterior of the Tate Modern (for his upcoming show in London). Then voila, a bit of editing later and then you have this cool video. I like how he "whites out" the previous sketch to do a new frame, but you can still see the ghost of the last one. I can't seem to find out where this guy is from. Any ideas?

~

And then there's the reoccuring phenomenon of the Mixed-tape. After re-reco0rdable tapes/cds came onto the market they seemed to such a fixture of the Gen X generation. It's such an easy/frustrating gift for someone. It can be embued with as much or as little meaning as the maker wants. It can have a theme or not. It can turn out amazing and be held onto for years or it can be tossed without as much as listening to one song. Oh, and when a potential love interest hands you a mixed-tape, that's automatically at least 6 hours of listening to that tape for hidden messages about how they really feel.

Found magazine co-founder, Jason Bitner, has created Cassette From My Ex, a site where they collect the stories behind mixed-tapes and then stream the actual tape. Awesome idea. I'm currently listening to Michael Hearst's "scissors and snare drums".

~

When I was working as a secretary there were lots of "following up" on things or blunder fixing. I was always having to call companies and try to get a person on the phone to whom I could ask specific questions about a certian order. I wish I had a list like gethuman.com that would have saved myself a hell of a lot of time listening to all the options, zoning out, having to go through all of them again only to try to not speak clearly for the voice recognition prompts in order to get an operator...took forever (especially since the automated voices always made me zone out and miss what option #2 was)

Oskar Fischinger

I have become interested in the history of the music video after watching an old Beastie Boys music vid while working (Deliverance was taken off-screen to show someone the "it's a robot--doing the robot!"). That got me thinking how fun it would be to take a class in the evolution of the music video. Thus, I started scoping it out on my own since I know of no such class at UT, nor am I student.

According to Wikipedia, Oskar Fischinger is one of the earliest filmmakers who experimented with music and film. He made animated films based around a pre-existing musical score--popular and classical music were both used. A few of his short films used tunes produced by German record label, Electrola, and ended with an advertisement for the newly released album. These films were screened at movie houses around Germany before the feature began...the first music video!

Getting himself into serious financial trouble and being in Munich at the turn of the 20th century, he picked up only his best equipment one night and ran away to Berlin. He choose to walk in order to get away undetected. While walking he would take single frame shots of the countryside as he went. He later released all of this as Walking From Berlin To Munich. While in Berlin, Fischinger found work as an animator and set designer on Fritz Lange's Frau Im Mond.



He continued to experiment with abstract art, music, and film until Nazism made working and distribution difficult and uncomfortable. He moved to LA with a job offer at Paramount Pictures. Fischinger made several films during this time that were quite notable (3 of them were included in the Olympiad of Animation's list of top films in 1984). He also worked on Disney's Fantasia opening sequence of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. However he did quit without credit because Disney simplified his work too much. Irreconcilable artistic differences.

The non-profit Center For Visual Music has compiled his films into a DVD series. The first collection of 10 films were released in 2006.

I can't find any of his films online, but here's an example in the form of an Homage.

How To Succeed Like Elton John

Charles K. Harris was considered the original "King of the Tear Jerkers" with having written over 300 songs around the turn of the 20th century. While his main subject was love and longing, he knew the benefits of agressive advertising in order to be the main song and dance man. He "personally paid to have 'After the Ball' inserted into the show A Trip to Chinatown. And in a booklet called How To Write A Popular Song, he advised his readers to "look at newspapers for your story-line," to "acquaint yourself with the style in vogue," and to "know the copywrite laws.""

~Teenage. Jon Savage.

I got these shoes the other day from Urban Outfitters. I'm not one that screams "Diamonds are a girl's best friend--only if they're set in gold!" I myself, prefer silver. But for some reason these shoes and I have bonded and I dig 'em. May I introduce you to my new friends, the Eltons!

This Girl Fucking Rocks

Oh holy shit. This is the best thing that I have seen in a while. You have to watch it, if only for just 15 seconds, it'll suck you in. I don't even to know where to begin with Leslie Hall of Ames, Iowa; maybe with the 1980's mid-western housewife make-up, mixed with...that outfit...yesss, the white-girl rap, and finally with the locals in her music video. I love everything about it.

Previously On Lost

Some friends of mine started a band in which each week they get together and write a song that recaps the previous episode of Lost. Having never seen the 3rd or any of the 4th seasons, I don't think I can fully appreciate any of the songs. However, I do dig it. Must catch up on Lost.

---Previously On Lost---