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An idiot's guide to the Baltiverse |
—Nick Cave discussing the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The 30 harshest musician-on-musician insults right here (via flavorpill)
I might’ve said the same thing this weekend. People looked at me like I was Mengele.
(via flavorpill)
Once upon a time there was a radio station called WHFS. It was the alternative music station back when that meant something. Once upon a time, you had to struggle to hear REM on the radio. HFS was underground, dirty, and sort of risque. Parents spoke of it in hushed tones, older teenagers would introduce it to you like a new drug.
Naturally, I grew up after the “Golden Age.” By the time I grew up, HFS was already stupid popular. People were already talking about how they sold out. My friends and I didn’t understand it, we came to the game late. We used HFS to establish our music identity. That sounds stupid, but that’s the way it worked in the fucking 90’s. The 92Q kids would talk shit about the HFS guys, the 98 rock guys would flip both of us on, and the 104.3 the Colt kids would talk about how AC/DC blows the hell out of anything that’s out now. There, I just described 3/4th of my High School experience.
HFS would hold a yearly HFStival. It started off simply, 20 bands for 20 dollars. Eventually it got so popular that it was selling out stadiums. THe HFStival in Baltimore had like 92,000 spoiled teenagers trying to feel up a girl for the first time. These things got huge. I remember camping out in front of a ticket office for two days and spending 60 bucks. That’s how things went before the internet folks, never question my commitment to see Everclear.
Around my freshman year of college, HFS started collapsing in on itself. It spent so much money on these HFStivals that they couldn’t afford to pay their DJ’s. Things fell apart soon after. It was replaced by a Spanish station, and people were pissed! They organized little petitions on AIM that said “Bring back HFS!” They harrassed the DJ’s at the bars, “Hey Gina Crash, when are you bringing back HFS?” All of a sudden their precious little childhood had been robbed from them. Where would they go for their daily fix of Sublime, Smashing Pumpkins, and the same bands that they’d heard for a solid decade plus Limp Bizkit?
Nevermind that Baltimore/Washington was never at a loss for alternative music. Nevermind the fact that DC 101 was THE SAME FUCKING CHANNEL. Sure, the Chili Cook Off was a half-assed HFStival, but HFStival was a half ass concert unless some guy was passing around a joint and you were fifteen.
You know what, 103.7 and 89.7 blew HFS out the water. Sure, you have to get through ten minute hippie songs, but when that was over, you could hear something cool or new. HFStival never played new music unless it was approved by their corporate masters. Occasionally one of the DJ’s would get frisky and they’d play some ancient REM, something from the days of classic HFS. Those minutes disappeared when HFS started emulating MTV, treating us to a nonstop helping of Nu Metal and Pop Punk.
HFStival’s demise was the greatest thing to happen to my musical taste. Instead of relying on Gina Crash to hook me up with a soundtrack, I took initiative and went out on my own. I used the internet. I used friends recommendations. I took risks and experimented. There’s a whole world of music out there! I still listen to Sublime on the occasion, but it was so refreshing hearing 55-46 unburdened from Bradley Nowell or whatever asshole’s singing it now.
So fuck HFS’ return. Fuck them and Fuck you. Grow up. it’s not the late 90’s anymore.
And while we’re at it, fuck Green Day. Poser ass motherfuckers.
And hey, no offense, I had a phase, but a seventeen minute song is a seventeen minute song.
Something about the nice weather had me thinking about the impact “Summer Breeze” has made on my life. Oh sure, it’s not a “Wu-Tang - Triumph” or a “Whole Lotta Love.” Fuck, I wouldn’t say I even like it. But I’ll be damned if I haven’t hummed Summer Breeze a million fucking time this spring alone.
It’s definitely a low blow song. They could replace the verse with graphic depictions of cannibalism, and people would still be blowing through the jasmine in their mind. Now I know very little about the actual production of music (One of the reasons why I stick to what I know best, which is cursing and complaining), but Seals and Crofts (or their producer, whatever), must’ve sacrificed their finest calf to come up with this ruthless masterpiece. The Harmony, the children’s piano, and the use of imagery combine to bore a hole into your head and plant it’s babies into your brain. And yeah, Summer Breeze and Jasmine… doesn’t take a genius to combine those two, but I don’t see you having the voice of either Seals or Croft, Nigga.
And hey, misogynist lyrics towards the end!
And I come home
from a hard day’s work
and you’re waiting there
not a care in the world
See the smile a-waitin’ in the kitchen
food cookin’ and the plates for two
Feel the arms that reach out to hold me
in the evening when the day is through
Not exactly misogynist, but it definitely implies that a woman’s place is making Seals or Croft feel better after their hard days work. Keep it simple! You don’t need another verse explaining how she also works as a graphic designer during the day, but is trying to start a catering company on the side. I’ve spent ten minutes trying to fit those into the song, and it doesn’t work!
This is another entry in “Songs I’ve listened to at the Orthodontist’s Office,” which means it’s milquetoast and corny. I’ve been playing this back to back with Ambrosia’s “How Much I Feel” to see which one represents Southern California 70’s Lite Rock best. Frankly, I think Summer Breeze taps into a more universal theme, something we can all agree with (Loving Summer Breezes blowing through hair, Jasmine and shit). Meanwhile “How Much I Feel” is a song recently divorced suburban mothers put on repeat while their getting wasted on White Zinfindel. Thus, Summer Breeze comes out on top.
I was going to make a claim that “Summer Breeze” is the whitest song ever, but I don’t think that sounds right. However, when I hear the song, I don’t think about two Mexican’s on a Picnic. I think about a white family, picking starfish up on the beach. I think of white people, driving their convertible on the Pacific Coast Highway. I think of the Hamptons. Most songs, I feel, are value neutral. Not Summer Breeze. This song is firmly encamped in Orange County.
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Our time machine takes us from the endless Bennigans of Southern California, to the capital of the Spanish Empire. I am immediately accused of being a Moor and tortured to death. Which is a shame because I really wanted to talk about my sudden love of medieval Spanish Music.
If you’re not aware, I’m a bit of a nerd. To the point that another round of Empire Earth bores me. Hence, I played Europa Universalis Two for a brief period in late 2010. If you haven’t played this game, I’d suggest it for the period music that plays while you’re involving yourself in the war of Austrian Succession. One of the pieces, “Danza Alta, Sobre La Spagna,” makes me cum. Every time I hear it, I imagine myself on the throne, twirling my beard, lancing boils, and ordering protestants executed.
What’s the best way of describing it? I don’t know, exotic? In america, everything that doesn’t have a million dollar production value sounds exotic. But to my black Baltimore ass, the sensuousness of this music produces some serious imagery. They say you can tell a lot about a culture by it’s music. I don’t know about that, but based on some of the songs connected to DASLS, medieval Spain must’ve been a spooky mo’fucking place to live.
My suggestion, on a rainy day, is to go to YouTube, play Danza Alta, than just play whatever else comes up on the Suggestions list. I promise you won’t be disappointed. Unless you’re a Moor.
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It’s Stereolab singer Laetitia Sadier’s birthday today. I have already wished her an awkward birthday greeting. Isn’t it great that we’re all interconnected?
Bam, done.
Sleigh Bells
“Rill Rill”
At long last, a “Rill Rill” video! They pretty much nailed it. Nice bandolier, Alexis!I love this video in part because it’s a sort of mashup of two of my most favorite blog posts ever: the one about how the video for Kanye’s “Flashing Lights” dramatically and patiently explores a single image rather than just cutting between a bunch of stuff, and the one about how Sleigh Bells depict the contrast between teenage girls’ sense of calm self-centeredness and violent, unpredictable exterior. At first its Instagram filter make it seem like a rip-off of the (also good!) “Teenage Dream” video, but then it turn into a kind of brutal satire on the (also valid!) idea of adolescence Katy Perry supports. But when (spoiler alert?) Alexis pushes Derek out of the car, she does so not with Beyonce’s womanly badass confidence, but with a teenager’s ginger terror of the gross physical world. The second part of the video - set in a high school, where teenage drama actually happens - Alexis finds herself by controlling things remotely, sitting calmly in a spotlight and making physical objects overheat without touching them. Then she rebels against authority not through actions but by drawing a knife in the shoot for her yearbook photo, disturbing grown-up expectations of the image teenagers should present, forcing them to confront the brutality that lies at the heart of adolescence. To continue the early 90s trend from last night, if Katy Perry is 90210, presenting an image of adolescence where the conditions are heightened to present teens’ most self-aggrandizing view of themselves, Sleigh Bells are My So-Called Life, emphasizing the baseness and negativity of teenage existence in a way that resonates with adolescents’ self-conception but also appeals to adults with a more nuanced recollection of what it was like to be young. Both are important. But I think more than anything else, Sleigh Bells are fulfilling a role that seems mostly absent these days; it’s hard to think of a current analogue for, say, Daria off-hand. The emphasis seems to be on Glee’s brand of relentless positivity, and while that’s nice and all, I certainly like that we’re making room for other ways of looking at youth.
Keep doing your thing Sleigh Bells. I have a nightmare that she’ll leave to pursue a solo career of shitty pop music, and resent the hell out of her for twenty years. Then they get back together, and it’s not the same, because they’re like 45 and old, and ick.
gerry rafferty — baker st
This is one of my favorite songs. No, I’m not joking. I used to hate it when it would come on in a cab or in the grocery store because the saxophones made me immediately depressed, but then I allowed it to “get at me” and it got at me and now I’m all like this city desert makes you feel so cooooold!!!! and he’s a rooooollin, he’s a roooooooollin stoooone. Try listening as if you’d never heard it in an idling taxi and pour one out for Mr. Rafferty, who died today. He joins Captain Beefheart in the epic jam session in the sky.
23. Resurrect Gerry Rafferty, have him play Baker St. on continuous loop.
(Edited because I don’t know how to spell Gerry).
Stereolab
“John Cage Bubblegum”
Live at Mod Lang in Berkeley, 10/26/1993Seventeen years ago today, a very young Stereolab rocked a small record store in California. I feel like this clip is a very valuable document of the early ’90s.
Christ I love Stereolab.
(Source: youtube.com)
