Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Why I do more thinking about baseball than I do about music (garbling ahead)

Well, that's not actually true. However, I find myself writing almost exclusively about bands, and not about, shall we say, "issues". I hear some music I like and I write about, whereas I haven't felt at all compelled to write about rockism or whatever issue various music websites are up in arms about. In some sense, I think you reach a point where everything becomes subjective and at that point, what other people are saying becomes irrelevant. At that point, certain issues become increasingly trivial. Like this one: Soulseeking

I've felt that need to consume, both in the downloading age and before it. But what happened to Nick a couple of years ago was the need to hear everything, and I haven't felt that in at least ten years (not even everything within a scene or genre). Compared to my teen, it's considerably more fruitless to even attempt such a thing and engage in that sort of completism, since there's so much more music available and it's easier than ever to get hear it. Nick doesn't want to know everything about postpunk and grime -- hey, neither do I! -- and the solution is simple. Don't listen to it, no need for drama, listen to something else. It's that simple. That's the sort of triviality I was referring to. My response is brief and I don't feel the need to discuss it beyond "just listen to whatever you want and leave it at that".

The need to hear everything is foolish, but the need to hear lots and lots is not -- it's a simple addiction just like any other. As I've said on other occasions, I accept the fact that there's practically an infinite pool of music out there that I would absolutely love if I ever got around to hearing it. I'm becoming convinced that the timing of anything I hear is essentially random. Recommendations are everywhere -- I follow through on some right away, some get filed away in my brain for years, and others are simply forgotten. Why? What determines whether a song or album is heard immediately as opposed to never? The crucial question is how much of this depends on factors that I can control (absolute choice over what I hear and when I hear it) and how much of it is pure randomness that is unrelated to music (moods, finding the time, millions of other real life pursuits).

My main objection to the article (which I enjoyed for the most part) is the way it looks toward the past, implying that we are, to some extent, powerless to avoid judging new music (and the feelings we get from hearing that music) with how we felt about music we heard in the past. Why won't new albums don't make him feel like InSides did? A valid concern, perhaps, but that will never happen -- those feelings will never return. You hear music differently at 18 than you do at 26 or 31. Nothing is the same. Kissing a girl isn't the same at 31 as it was at 18. It's not less exciting or less special, it's just different because 18 is not 31. I went through what Nick went through. I used to wonder out loud if I'd ever be truly excited -- heart-palpitation excitement and life-affirming joy -- for any band ever again. Then I discovered Pulp. Again, it felt like the end of something, a conclusion to diehard fandom and I continued to wonder whether those feelings could ever be repeated. That was 1995. If I was incapable of feeling that strongly about a band over a period of ten years, I would have lost interest in hearing new bands several years ago. Nothing could be further from the truth, as this blog clearly shows. A steady stream of comparisons to the past helps to confine the past to a self-enforced higher pedestal that can never compete with the present, and then you're no different from those people who say that nothing can or will ever be better than the Beatles or Zeppelin.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Black Dice, Et Sans, Awesome @ Gladstone Hotel

There's a gas leak in the building. Oh wait, it's Awesome in their stage outfits, with soft glowing white lights where their faces should be, blowing into spooky horns, sampling and looping their voices, and pushing buttons on ancient toy organs. Watching all of this in the darkened room heightens the ghostly elegance of their music, and although the tension slowly builds toward a Black Dice-ian bleep-filled finale, I think their strengths lie in their more anodyne moments. They captured a feeling of pastoral stasis similar to that on Flying Saucer Attack's "Distance", which FSA couldn't or wouldn't recapture after that (typically relying on layer after layer of reverb to make their points both before and after that album).

I know essentially nothing about the state of goth music, or anything related to goth music (except for darkwave, which is still recycling 1995 trance the last I checked) but if more of it sounded like Arcana's "Inner Pale Sun", then I'd listen to a lot more of it. In contrast to highly intimidating labelmates such as Brighter Death Now, this album is lush, inviting, and cinematic, exuding warmth with each blaring note. Goth music always seems to bring thoughts of horror and fright to my mind -- a spider-infested haunted house as opposed to the grand prescence of a true gothic manor with leafy green ivy crawling around its exterior. Why can't more music in this genre sound this grand? Where do I find more of this stuff -- is this as simple as (finally) buying myself some Dead Can Dance CD's? As you can tell, I haven't a clue what I'm talking about when it comes to this stuff, but I know what I like.

I've been meaning to write about that album for a while, but conveniently, it fits into a discussion of Et Sans because they've found another wonderful goth formula that I wish others would use as well. Bouncy synth pop and shimmering keyboards form the basis for improvisational noise and fits of unrestrained screaming. Sure, let's let Fennesz's computer go nuts all over Depeche Mode's "Get the Balance Right", why not? The band are barely able to contain their smiles, which is perhaps a reaction over being not allowed to smile in their 4839 other bands. The sense of fun in their music is mostly absent on their album -- there's obviously something to be said for watching a performers' face and having the option of dancing along with them.

Since I'm writing this a couple of days later, I might as well open up a time loop to the night following the concert in order to talk about one more thing that I know nothing about. I saw five minutes of Canadian Idol last night. These were the only five minutes I've seen all season. What is wrong with my country? The emperor has no clothes and I think I'm the only one who realizes it. The judges certainly don't because they're working overtime to polish turds into gold and if I hadn't seen the two finalists with my own eyes then I might have bought what the judges were selling. Neither Rex or Melissa looks like a star. They look like ordinary kids. Ryan Malcolm looks like a waiter who won a singing contest. He doesn't look like a star and that's why he isn't one. Kalan Porter is a dewy-eyed manchild. He looks like a star and he is one. Rex and Melissa don't look like pop singers. Neither has a future as one.

Rex's version of Five For Fighting's "Superman" was delivered in a brutal monotone that had me aghast at the notion that this was actually the finale and not the round where they eliminate 32 contestants down to 16. Plus, the dude's a midget. Sorry. Melissa has a fine voice and should clearly be the winner, but taking on "Angel of the Morning" was a potentially suicidal move because of the extremely high risk of falling flat on your face with a song that difficult. My perception is that she managed to do enough with it to not change anybody's opinion of her, no more and no less.

Canadian Idol, then: let's have some humility and quit before we make ourselves look any dumber.

Black Dice rocked my socks off. They have got to be in my top five of bands that you absolutely have to see live to appreciate. They're punishing in person, but on record, their electronic squiggling carries maybe 10% of the power (one or two tracks on each album excepted).

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Sloan, controller.controller @ U of T orientation week (9/9/05)

OK, they like discopunk. They sound not one iota different from the last time I saw them over a year ago, and until controller.controller write one tune that's one-tenth as breathless as Blondie's "Atomic" (in itself being only the 15th or 20th most breathless, exciting Blondie song) then I'll be leaving them alone.

Speaking of bands whose songs all sound the same, we have Sloan's brand of noisy, harmony-drenched, guitar pop. It's no surprise that they break out the greatest hits set for the occasion, which had many in the crowd singing along -- and some of them were actually frosh!

But only two songs into the show, I'm struck by a sobering thought. As 1992's "Underwhelmed" resonates around the sun-drenched field to general indifference, I realize that at that moment, it could have been MY frosh orientation. A dozen years later, here I am, on the same campus, listening the sort of indie rock that I didn't much care for at the time! Thankfully, the Sloan boys make no attempt to come across as anything other than the collective frosh's geeky and not-so-in-touch-anymore older brothers. Ah yes, they're from my generation, I thought while eyeballing hundreds of cute, unattainable girls.

Back in the day, we all had a good laugh as Sloan morphed from slacker kids into britpoppers seemingly overnight (even though the songs were fairly good -- strangely enough, we had the same reaction when Bryan Adams did the same thing ... hmm). While Chris Murphy was trying to out-Lennon Liam Gallagher, the band continued to write summertime singalong after summertime singalong, until they had gradually turned into Canada's version of Oasis without the, you know, bullshit that you have to put up with if you're a fan of Oasis and the assholes that populate that band. There is no greater use for them and their greatest hits CD than to blast it at as many summer festivals as possible lest the band grow old and stop caring about these songs.

Xiu Xiu, Frog Eyes, Yellow Swans @ Gladstone (9/8/05)

I could try describing Yellow Swans' blast of ever-growing quaking noise (with bonus screaming), but on occasions such as these, it's really best to defer to the Mogwai scale (a continuing work in progress for me), and leave the summary at that. So, at their peak they approach 0.75, maybe 0.8 Mogwai. Hopefully that clears things up.

Consider me sold on Frog Eyes after months of musing over the odd ecstatic comments on message boards ... with precision riffs (and the young Shel Silverstein on lead guitar), and stiff, almost robotic stage motions, they're a hardcore version of the Feelies, steeped through the Ex's sense of white funk. Whisper to a scream, why don't you ...

For this tour, Xiu Xiu have scaled back to the duo of Jamie and Caralee, but when one loses the use of one of the five senses, the other four are heightened in order to compensate for the loss. So, they compensate by setting all of their instruments to "stun". Unlike their last visit here a few months ago, the duo have no patience for slow-building, moody pieces. Instead, they shuffle the setlist to favour a maximum amount of dense noise and manic energy with sinus-splitting versions Don Diasco and (especially) Apistat Commander. One exception was the closer, "Sad Pony Guerrilla Girl", which was delivered as an aching duet and basically forecast the fact that we were being sent home.

Saturday, September 03, 2005

MTV Video Music Awards 2005

Note: I'm very late with this ... I wrote a bunch of stuff during the live broadcast, but didn't get the chance to go back and look it all over because a) I moved this week, and b) the internet isn't hooked up at my new place yet. In any case, the fallout from this show will be overshadowed times 1000000 by Kanye West's comments on the Katrina Telethon that aired on NBC earlier tonight. It was a tense and beautiful moment ... he was visibly nervous, even shaken as the words emerged from his mouth ... he knew that he'd started to ramble, but ended his monologue powerfully with the "they're sending in the army to shoot us" line, which was enough of a "WTF, did I just hear him say that??" moment as it is. However, you could tell that he had more on his mind ... also, it's remarkable that he didn't raise his voice during the whole tirade (can it still be called a tirade if spoken in calming, hushed tones such as those?). He never came unglued, never lost his cool, never let his anger bubble up and overshadow the words he was saying. I know I wouldn't have kept my cool like that, and I doubt that many others would have been able to as well. This makes is pretty hard to handwavingly dismiss what he said as the rantings of another irrational, violence-obsessed black man on crack, although many commentators will surely try.

Here we go.


7:46. There's something quaint about the fact that Much Music gets (or wants) ZERO VMA priviledges. Every year, they're wandering around in the street outside the venue or are backstage in some closet bringing us hilariously bad "coverage". For the pre-show, we get oh so exciting shots of Leah wandering around the CNE. Why have a countdown show at all?

I'm looking forward to this year's show a lot more than last year's, AKA "let's give Usher a blow job for three and a half hours". It feels as though there's a lot more starpower this year, and what's more, it's *new* starpower. Britney and Christina aren't being recycled for another go-around, but instead we have Kelly Clarkson, Gwen Stefani (er, her solo career is new), and Mariah Carey (back from the dead, what's old is new again). Plus, the host is some new guy I've never heard of, this Diddy character. I love looking at that name in print and laughing at it. Diddy. DIDDY. I can't wait to hear the announcer say "AND YOUR HOST -- DIDDY!!" :/

8:00. Green Day open the show, looking like a group of snot-nosed twenty-year old freaks, playing the song that nearly became the first rock #1 since Nickecrap. All that pyro was completely unneccessary, but they're going to win a billion awards tonight, so the pyro is just letting us know how important they are.

8:07. In 2002, the WWF finally gave into the panda organization after years of legal scuffles and changed their name to WWE. That week on RAW (their weekly flagship program), they held a hardcore title match to lead off the show. Suffice to say that the title was a joke at that point, i.e. it had no prestige at all. Part of the gimmick was that the title was defended 24/7, at all times. I can't remember who was in the match, but it was over very quickly and the announcer said "the winner, and NEW WWE Hardcore Champion, [whoever]". Then, somebody else came down to the ring unexpectedly, hit the new champ with a chair, and pinned him, resulting in yet another title change (remember, the stupid title was defended 24/7), which led to another announcement: "the winner, and NEW WWE Hardcore Champion, [whoever]". This happened about five times in sequence. I think the original champ ended up with the title once this clusterfuck was over, but the title didn't mean shit anyway, so whatever. The real purpose of all this was to get the WWE name announced as many times as possible off the top of the show in order to drill the name change into the fans' heads.

Tonight's opening montage, featuring Sean Combs, was designed for precisely the same purpose.

8:11. I thought I had gotten used to seeing the skinny version of Lindsay Lohan, but apparently not because she now has Alicia Keys' body. Bizarrely, they are presenting Best Male and Female Video together, which leads to Kanye West and Kelly Clarkson approaching the stage while their songs are awkwardly stapled together and played over the loudspeakers. Kelly's backless dress is practically falling apart as she speaks. No complaints.

Before the commercial, we get a Beavis and Butthead vignette! MTV, I'm warning you: don't tease me with this one. We need B&B to chuckle at Gwen Stefani and Theory of a Deadman and we need it NOW.

8:25. Luda's "Pimpin All Over the World" is just sorta there, a bit too clean and sterile for me. Diddy claims he's a gentleman, which means there's no foul language allowed such as fuck and shit. That joke is more played than ... see DX 1997 for the ideal execution of the joke. There are way too many things to make fun of in Diddy's mini-monologue, such as his pulling the "VOTE or DIE" catchphrase out of it's Fall 2004 mothballs. Voting in a presidential election, voting for who has the nicer dress between Gwen Stefani and Eva Longoria. Eh, it's all the same.

8:34. Green Day win Best Rock Video. No surprise.

8:40. ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN! Like a stilted dance number featuring the smooth steps of our man Diddy. Usher looks bored. Is that the singer from Good Charlotte with Hilary Duff (looking bored)? Black Eyed Peas are grooving along, I guess that's the sort of thing that happens when you let a white girl into the group. Grandmaster Flash on the decks is cool though ... and just as I make fun, MC HAMMER APPEARS AND DANCES TO A VERSE OF "U CAN'T TOUCH THIS", complete with suited entourage. OK, I believe, I believe.

8:48. Shakira and Alejandro Sanz perform amidst jets of fire. It's a Latin performance, so I guess there needs to be fire. Because Latin music is spicy. Hot. Get it, folks?

9:03. I have no idea how they decide which hip-hop videos get tagged with the "Dance" tag, but "1, 2 Step" and "Lose Control" were both nominated, and I'm all in favour of electro songs with rapping on them taking over this category (and the charts).

9:06. R. Kelly: method actor. Acting out every part of "Trapped In the Closet", complete with pillow-throwing, imaginary gun waving, and homosexual hissy-fit, he horribly lip-synchs through a (new?!) Part Six, in which Chuck leaves Rufus and returns to his wife. Hope you enjoyed your foray into cock-sucking, Chuck. I really like R. Kelly's album, but this performance was like unintentional slapstick.

9:24. The Killers perform "Mr. Brightside" at a nighttime pool party in their motel. Then we lose out on a surefire "Anything Can Happen (TM)" moment when Luda ("Number One Spot") beats out The Game and 50 Cent ("Hate It Or Love It").

9:38. Diddy talks about how cool he is and all the people he knows. Again. For the fifth or sixth time tonight. Then he pretends to conduct an orchestra while Biggie plays on the big screen. This is like the hip-hop dinosaur excess version of the American Bandstand 33 1/3 show, where the all-star orchestra played "Blue Suede Shoes" and Elvis joined in via tape. Snoop shows up, sounds great, but can't save this segment. The London Philharmonic Plays the Music of Biggie Smalls -- in a record store near you, just in time for Xmas.

10:00. Things got interesting: Fat Joe dissed G-Unit, a bunch of reggaeton artists got 15 seconds each to ply their trade (feel the record sales spike, FEEL IT), Missy won again (Best Hip-Hop, Missy:MTV VMA's = Sting:Brits = dead, sick, and dying people: Grammys), and Pharrell introduced Coldplay all serious-like (because Coldplay are "deep" and "emotional", necessitating the use of proper gravitas when saying their name).

10:16. Kelly Clarkson wins again (best POP vid), and again, acts like the game show winner who can hardly believe that she's actually a star. That's refreshing. Kanye West gives his usual solid performance, but on second thought, maybe he'll be the one to come out with an album featuring just an orchestra instead of beats.

10:29. The Killers give the most boring acceptance speech ever, while Eva Longoria wears a dress/bathing suit that somehow manages to be incredibly revealing and incredibly ugly. Then we cut to Mariah Carey, who was put up at a much fancier hotel than the Killers were. She sings a "Shake It Off"/"We Belong Together (remix)" medley, and I still can't figure out what the bigass deal is with either song.

10:59. This is the point in the show where we're coming up on three hours and I can no longer keep concentrating. My Chemical Romance aren't going to help turn things around, either. 50 Cent swearing up a storm (censored by MM) did manage to wake me up for a few minutes. I don't know what Fat Joe was thinking -- 50 never loses these sorts of flamewars. The pertinent facts: Fat Joe vs 50 Cent is a commercial mismatch by at least a factor of ten.

11:07. Green Day win again and don't want to be left out of all the fun, so Billie Joe swears a few times while thanking his friends and managers.

11:15. Destiny's Child get to say a special goodbye speech on the cusp of their retirement. Wow, unprecedented, just like Lance Armstrong after winning his seventh Tour. Then, to the surpise of nobody who has watched any 20 consecutive minutes of this show, Green Day win for Video of the Year.

11:17. Kelly Clarkson gets the closing spot -- amazing. Let's get one thing straight. Skinny blonde Kelly is hot. This is the look that Lindsay Lohan is craving right now.

Well aware that she's closing the show and can afford to lose her mind a bit, she screams her way through an unglued version of "Since U Been Gone", as the performance incorporates an extended ending and a wet t-shirt contest. No complaints.

Final comment: my mind probably wandered very easily because of the busy week ahead, hence the lesser attention to detail compared to past awards show commentaries. It's also possible that the format is growing stale for me -- we'll see. Unlike last year, it was decently-paced and I didn't find myself bored shitless through most of it. As a host, Diddy was pompous, annoying, and totally unfunny. Otherwise, there were no grand peaks and valleys, just rolling plains of marginal quality with a few bits of interesting topography thrown in. Many people have slammed the show, calling it the worst MTV VMA's ever, but those people have obviously blocked 2004 out of their system. But I am starting to wonder if they'll achieve the rollercoaster rides of 1997 or 2003 anytime soon.