If you have a great weekend planned, don't read this. If it's just another dreary pre-holiday set of days for you, well, go ahead. I swear it's not my intention to bum you out. I don't think any members of my family actually read my blog, but just in case, I'm going to be vague on the personal parts and public on others.
My sister entered the hospital yesterday for a major operation. A few months ago, she went in to see her doctor for a routine check-up and he discovered something else. The situation was serious enough that the professionals said surgery was the only recourse. While I was running around the AP Skyscraper doing something, her boyfriend left a voicemail for me telling me she went through the surgery with no complications, but they were going to observe her for a couple days just to make sure she was okay. No worries.
The day before she went in, I finished compiling the list of Bands We Ain't Touching With A Sterilized Javelin and called her up. I said I was thinking about her and tried to drop some wiseguy one-liners on her to make her laugh. While I did get a few out of her, she was volleying back some wisecracks of self-deprecation that significantly downplayed her immediate future. She was really casual about the whole thing, listing a whole bunch of things to do ("Take our mother out for her checkup, get groceries, do laundry, undergo major surgery, get gasoline...."). After 10 minutes of this, I wished her luck, told her I loved her and that I'd see her and the rest of the brood for Thanksgiving. Then I went back to work.
Later that night, sometime before Conan O'Brien told his audience, "Bah, everbody, BAH!" and long after my wife went to bed, taking the dogs and cats with her, I decided to catch up on my TiVo playlist. I was stacking up episodes of House, Eli Stone, Pushing Daisies and Eleventh Hour (I promised Mrs. Pettigrew to look the other way if Rufus Sewell wanted to show her his Union Jack, so to speak), but, hey, I gotta get up in the morning. Instead, I watched an old episode of the British music show, Later With Jools Holland. I recorded it months ago, and kept it because David Bowie played a really cool arrangement of "Rebel Rebel," and I'm trying to figure out how to get it onto my computer and my iPod.
The show closed with Bowie and his band playing the title track to his 2002 disc, Heathen. Alan Dodds picked out a melancholy, yet hopeful sounding guitar figure and then everybody else started layering their parts on top of it. The atmosphere was positively haunting. Then Bowie sang, "You say you'll leave me/And when the sun is low/And the rays high /I can see it now/I can feel it die." At that moment, something sprang out from my subconscious and I was overcome with sadness. My Shetland sheepdog (named after the guy performing on my TV screen) came into the room, jumped on the couch and put his beak on my lap. I was reminded of an old interview with some '90s alt-rock luminary who said the biggest musical influence in his life was his older sister. Because growing up, he played all of her records when she went out for the evening. I thought about rocking my sister's copy of the Doors' The Soft Parade when I was a kid. I thought about the time when I was 11 and had to go to the hospital for the "traumatic" allergy tests. My sis came to visit me toting a copy of Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies album and some AC fan mag that was filled with references to some heavy intellectual stuff (Antonin Artaud, Baudelaire) I shudda been discovering in college. All of those memories came flooding back like a building falling on me. I think I shot through a new box of Kleenex for the last 100 seconds of that song, and even Bowie (the dog) felt a need to lick my face clean. (Maybe he just craves salty things at 2 in the morning and chips weren't available.)
Okay. My sister is fine, I'm way behind on my paperwork and I've installed Kleenex on the weekend grocery list. What do I want from you? Tell me the song that's guaranteed to evacuate your tear ducts and why. The kind of song where you have to leave the room/mall/restaurant when it's playing in order to maintain your public composure. The song you gotta skip on the disc because the other 10 your central nervous system can handle. The song you keep hidden from yr hahdcoa bros because it reminds you about loss or something else you couldn't control. And let's not talk about being "emo" or being wussy or some such useless bullshit. Because I'm willing to bet my record collection that the toughest neck-tatted pit warrior you know got his/her psyche crushed by something. I don't want you to be cool--I want you to be human.
In typical AltPress form, I'm always slammed right before the holidays. Everybody needs an answer, a form filled out, a meeting, a finalized list, a drink, a meal, a briefcase filled with unmarked $50s, a reason to live, a case of vodka, a... dammit! I'm projecting again! So for those days when I don't come into work wearing a hoodie lined with 20 pounds of high-grade Czechoslovakian semtex, I prefer to meltdown to the following pieces of aluminum.
DESALVO: Mood Poisoner (Rock Action) These psycho-Scots have a lineage that includes members of Idlewild (a band I've never liked, despite all of my Anglophile friends telling me I'm clueless. Then again, they like Stereophonics) and the positively grating, late-80s band, Stretchheads. I'm pretty sure they're named after famous '60s serial killer Albert DeSalvo, (known to your parents as "the Boston Strangler"), because this record is pretty towering in its hatefulness. Like some kind of amalgam of Mastodon's crunch, Today Is The Day's exposed psycho-sexual nerve endings and the directness of the Jesus Lizard, Mood Poisoner is, to quote a stoner friend of mine, "some serious shit." BTW, the song "Cock Swastika" is not a Metro Station cover. And they're on Mogwai's label, so it's gotta be choice, right? Think of them as the anti-Peter Frampton: Do you feel like they do? If so, seek help....
DUCHESS SAYS Anthologie Des 3 Perchoirs (ALIEN 8) I tried to get Tim The Self-Depricator to give these French-Canadian art-damaged types some space in AP Recommends, but he "wasn't feeling it." Maybe he'd "feel it" if the Duchess-dudes would write sheet music on staff lines that were installed on his face by the fingernails of seemingly deranged frontwoman Annie-C Deschenes. Recalling everything from a sociopath Death From Above 1979 ("Ccut Up"), a summit meeting of Thurston Moore and Made Out Of Babies ("La Friche") and/or the angularity and synthesizer abuse associated with Point Line Plane or Chromatics ("A Century Old"), this team of racket-makers is more fun than those seances we hold in Rachel's office. You don't know about these? All the editors surround her promo Bronx ouija board in an effort to reach Nancy Spungen to find out a) if Sid actually offed her, b) whether hell is balmy this time of year and c) if introducing heroin to the British punk scene was her biggest accomplishment in life.
MAN-FLU Okay, so it's not on the unpopular compact disc format--go bitch about how I let you down on your own damn blog. On their MySpace page, these great Britons describe themselves as "a change of ambience as you walk into different rooms of an empty house; the lies of a cheating politician AKA east-coast punk; your first time with another woman; Tim Westwood on Acid; amputee sex; GWAR." I'd throw in a female-fronted Pere Ubu populated by a bunch of psych-ward attendants who like their jobs entirely too much. Will somebody please throw a briefcase of money at these people to record 10 songs, like, right now?
CHRISTOPHER NORRIS is responsible for some of the most vibrant images to come out of the underground music scene. As the one-man (design) gang of STEAK MTN, Norris has created striking visual work for Against Me! (Dude, you know you wanted all those shirts named after each track on New Wave), his own anti-music outfit, the now-defunct Combatwoundedveteran and Light Yourself On Fire's latest, Intimacy. Leave the term "centrist" for your political blogs: With images that are positively vibrant or patently hideous, Norris' work leaves little middle ground.
What sort of things are informing your work these days? Music? Food? Architecture? Film or movies or cinema or whatever the fuck you call moving images recorded mostly at 24fps (I don't want to cut anyone out by sounding like a fucked-dry art dink) is the heaviest informer of my picture drawing. My interest in it and it's influence on my work is always far more prominent than anything else I might--or at least pretend to be--interested in. For all the music junk I get tangled in, I find it very rarely moves my imagination. Sure, there are bands I enjoy working with and people in those bands who "creatively challenge" me, but "music" as an uplifting, emotionally organic form of sonic power is a completely dead scene when spinning my crummy artwork.
I can't imagine hockey moms wanting a Steak Mtn. original over their fireplace, but haven't you been getting responses from more unusual quarters these days? I see most of the attention I have been getting as gravy from someone else's victory. A byproduct of a slightly mysterious band with fans that are obsessed to connect with every sliver of sinew that makes the train run. Which is totally cool, because really, money is money, work is work, press is press, etc. But I am not even close to breaching the birth canal of new, daywalking civilians looking at the Steak work. I mostly just keep getting the standard issue sweaty-14-year-old-boy fan letters. And as sweet as those misspelled nuggets of enthusiasm are for my ego, the adjectives "killer", "sick" and "brutal" are sort of sleepy notices from a career of (clearly bitter, totally subjective) overthinking, heavy theorizing and the projected desperation of giving new looks to boring transgressive imagery.
And upon rereading all of that above stuff, I sound like an ungrateful dick. Which is not my intention, but you are right: No moms, dads, aunts or nannies are looking for the newest werewolf drawing from Christopher Norris/Steak Mtn--and that's totally cool. I am just being realistic: I know who sees my stuff and I always really like the feedback from those kids. I remember being young and excited about every new thing that showed up in front of me and I especially remember sending these same daft and directional love letters to anyone that could receive mail.
With regards to the underground music/art scene culture you came up in, are you starting to see a lot of repetition and cliches? Just like many new bands are being influenced by acts less than 10 years old, are you starting to see that routine sameness happening in visual art circles? Sure. I think it's always happened in music, art, writing, language, etc, but it is more visible these days because we have expanded information and access to all creative turns that good and terrible artists make. It's dumb to say, but history now gets defined almost immediately in the face of all this insane technology, making the circle round quicker for themes or styles or whatever to become noticeably repetitive. In every creative movement, canonized or city-centralized or culturally generated, there will be--and have been--pretenders to the throne. You need water to float, and the fakers, the lazy, and the mediocre are all part of what makes awesome artists seem so awesome.
What kind of stuff do you patently loathe? Are you seeing any pieces of work that might as well be attributed to "Pork Quarry," considering the amount of appropriation lifted from you? Currently, I am tired of faux mysticism, mythical beasts and woodland animals in people's art. Looking at another deer head or haunted tree or fucking watered-down Kenneth Anger rip-off is going to blind me. With that being said, I am completely fucked if anyone looks at my portfolio and sees I am guilty of all sorts of ironic, pyramidical, werewolf'd monster drawings. But thats the work I know will at least sort of fill my bank account with rent money. Realistically, it's why kids keep pumping that shit out for other kids, because sales can and will soar. I think the things I do are boring anyway, so there has to be a good number of kids who fall asleep even sort of taking notice of my repetitive theme pool. Then again, I don't deny that there also might be some goofs who like it and want to copy or lift the general atmosphere of my what I do, which is totally cool. I steal all the time, I have been known to be an absolute criminal hack. I would attribute that great Picasso quote ("Bad artists copy. Great artists steal.") to my thievery, but it doesn't apply because I am probably a tracer above being any sort of good or bad artist.
Your most public work is the series of pieces you did for each track on the Against Me! disc New Wave. You have a close working relationship with Tom Gabel; in the future, will you pursue working with other bands you share an aesthetic kinship with, in an effort to forge a "visual identity" for them? Or haven't you found the opportunities particularly inspiring? There are tons of bands I would love to work with, but I usually run into logistical problems. Perhaps they are not really relevant anymore (the Misfits); way out of my reach (Slayer); sort of a nightmare, politically (Burzum); aren't the best aesthetic match (Ghostface Killah); or in the most extreme case, are from a different time period altogether (the Shangri-La's). Naturally, I get hit up by bands that are similar to Against Me! but are lower on the food chain of popularity. Minus the shirts I did for Green Day that they didn't end up liking--because they were bad.
But basically, if it comes my way & there is money involved, then I am down. I am gun for hire (or a hack of you will) in my thirties, I don't have scruples about blowing design ideas on dumb things. Especially when you realize that having some sort of agenda limits any chances to live off of your art, or at least widdles down the chances for that. Really, I just want to give this drawing shit up and make music videos. So take heed, huge bands: I am inexperienced, have really dumb ideas and am indeed for hire.
A recent economic trend piece reported that one of the few areas of fiscal growth is art. Do you find that possibility exhilarating or depressing? I remember the title of a compilation issued by a Norwegian record label: Money Will Ruin Everything. Not if your goal is to take that economic growth and retire very very early in life. But actually, it's exciting to see interesting artists making good money. Especially when they take that cash and sink it into wild, grandiose personal projects that end up sustaining their livelihood, hopefully feeding their creativity to go bigger, weirder and smarter.
Go visit the world of Steak Mtn. Norris will have an exhibition in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in April 2009. But don't worry: I'll remind you about it closer to the date.
I admit it: I fully expected this post-election blog entry to be nothing more than a photo of Sarah Palin and an Imeem-hosted clip of the Bronx's "Shitty Future."
The onslaught of robocalls, paid political ads and well-meaning volunteers constantly calling to remind me to vote and asking to volunteer has given me a democracy hangover. "Hi, this is Marcia Cross. I'm nibbling on Kate Walsh's earlobes, waiting for you to come over to see us--as soon as you get done voting." "Hey, this is Elisabeth Hasselbeck. I used to be human, but now I'm just a colony of redback spiders held captive in a huge sack of human skin. Bury me in a pet cemetery so I may reanimate again--after you vote." "Dear American: This is Karl Rove asking you to vote this Friday." I wonder how many people voted against their hearts and minds simply because they were sick of the process. It's as if not showing up at the polls to stay home and get plastered was the only protest a person had. (I'm a sellout: I just filled out any old circles on my ballot without looking, just so I could get an "I Voted" sticker that would procure me free coffee from Starbucks. By the way, an issue to put a hazardous waste dump across the street from my house passed by one vote. At least my dogs will look good with a little glow around them.)
Unlike the NeoCon resurgence that gave George W. Bush a legacy, it seems that more folks from the liberal side are doing that reach-across-the-aisle thing. (The conservatives like to use that phrase, too, but I think it's because the term "clothesline" is too literal.) Consider: When John McCain congratulated President-Elect Obama in his concession speech, the whole room went boo-crazy. When Obama acknowledged McCain his speech last night in Chicago's Grant Park, the crowd applauded respectfully. To McCain's credit, he told his supporters about the necessity in crossing the divide. John McCain reminded us in no uncertain terms why we've got to get over ourselves.
Last week, I overheard a conversation in a restaurant between two women. Not sure if it was mother-daughter, mentor-student or a MILF-teen hottie summit meeting. The hottie with the painted-on jeans and lip ring was going on about how McCain creeps her out and if McCain wins, "I'm going to do more charity work. Daycare, women's shelters, homeless stuff like that." The cougar stirred her tea and rolled her eyes. "That's all well and good. But if Obama wins, you think all the nation's problems are gonna vaporize as soon as he sharpens a pencil in the Oval Office? We all need to be better people."
And for a guy who works at a music mag, I need to be better at blogging about music. So go check out the new single from one of Cleveland's finest bands, This Moment In Black History. Their single, Raw Black Power, is available on iTunes, and from cool record stores in the classic seven-inch black plastic format. And if you're bummed about the election, cheer up over here.
It's been called to my attention that some bands patently hate AP. Actually, I'm kidding--I've been well aware of that for years. Do I care? Well, kinda. I mean, I'm all for creating both dialogue and relationships with people in an effort to foster understanding, motivation and possibly the recipe for a really good ginger wasabi chicken wing coating. Then again, I'm not crawling through miles of broken glass and upturned roofing nails just to make someone "happy." (Well, except this person.)
A few years ago, there was this one guy who took umbrage to the bands we had featured in a hardcore special we once ran. Of course, said dude had a blog and like most pedantic types who feel they have to "protect" their scene (such "warriors" are usually found in the cultures of hardcore and black metal), he was going off on how AP sucks and how we dine on the flesh of puppies and kittens thrown to us by fat-cat corporate music robber barons or some such bullshit that's capital-b BORING. The only line in the scene-soldier's blog that set me off was "I talked to people in the bands you featured and they hate your mag." Assuming there was any truth or validity to Officer McMosh's comment, it pissed me off that the double-talking bands willingly chose to participate in the piece, yet nobody from their proud tribe lined their unwashed pierced-and-inked carcasses up against a wall and beat them to death with a chunk of garden hose packed with sand. After all, "they sold out the scene," right? S'wonderful how pliable some ideologies can be, isn't it?
Several years ago, I fought long and hard with everyone here to get a huge-ass feature on the positively grating, yet well-respected Lightning Bolt. After I went through a three-day knockdown dragout with everyone above me on the masthead, I was begrudgingly given the go-ahead to make it happen. After several emails and phone calls to the publicist who was hired to represent the band, I was told in so many words that the band weren't interested. So I ask why they bothered to send advance music over to our office in the first place. "It was my decision to send you the record," said the publicist, "so please do not blame this on the band, I accept responsibility for this and should have checked with them prior to sending out any records. They are doing almost no interviews, so AP is not alone in not getting an interview." I heard a rumor from a very reliable source that Andrew WK wanted to do a split-single with them a few years ago, but they were too cool for school with him, as well.
It seems that every self-respecting punk simply loooves Propagandhi, the highly principled outfit from some insect-laden stretch of Canada. So when Fat was ready to pimp Potemkin City Limits, I was ready to give them five pages in the mag. Nope: We got back some kinda Bible Spice "thanks-but-no-thanks" response about how they didn't want to be in a magazine that covers the stuff we feature. I kinda figured this would happen, but I'm not gonna throw myself off the roof of the AP Skyscraper; I know the drill. So imagine a couple months later, when I got an email from some drone at the band's G7 Welcoming Committee label: "So, last month marked a first for us at G7 when we entered the futuristic (yet strangely boring) and economically viable world of digital-only releases. That is, albums that we are releasing only as MP3 downloads. I'm writing to see whether you might be interested in reviewing any of our first batch of said digital releases." So the Proper-ones are too principled to be featured in AP, but the bands whose music they're putting out are? The label doesn't exist anymore; knowing that makes me a card-carrying member of my local Schadenfruede Society.
I've got several other stories like this, but this blog is way too long. So let me say this: I've got no sour grapes or gripes with anyone mentioned here, and I'll continue buying your records. I totally respect any artist's decision to hate on AP for whatever reason, so long as they don't act like a bunch of whistle-dicked hypocrites about it. I merely ask that you tell your enablers not to send over any copies of your "vastly superior art," or have minions make calls/emails to our office to assist in propping up your motormouthed hypocrisy. Let's agree to keep ignoring one another.
Thanks. Don't take any wooden nickels--or violence-flavored cupcakes.
Oh, almost forgot: The new (International) Noise Conspiracy disc isn't bad. Really.
Andy Falkous (stripe-shirted wiseguy above) is the guitarist/synth-abuser/singer for FUTURE OF THE LEFT, the best thing to come out of Wales since Tom Jones and Torchwood. Curses, FOTL's debut, is a glorious Molotov cocktail of lyrical non sequiturs and tangled guitar lines, stirred by a rhythm section (bassist Kelson Mathias and drummer Jack Egglestone) heavier than Godzilla's swinging scrotum. (I guess in the U.K., that would make them "the large lizard's bollocks"). In addition to knowing their way around guitar necks, Falkous (formerly of Mclusky) and Mathias (late of Jarcrew) are world-class heckler neutralizers, always at the ready to provoke the most benign audiences or bitchslap the most dullard loudmouth. (Plenty of those instances were captured for posterity on their tour-only live album, Last Night I Saved Her From Vampires. What, you didn't buy it when they were on tour with Against Me! and Ted Leo? Come on, people...
Regarding your appearance on the Against Me!/Ted Leo trek, were the Lefties greeted as liberators or as annoyances?
Neither, but in general, it went pretty damn well. Gainesville and Philly were a little half-dicked and Cincinnati somewhat medium-whelmed, but the reactions have been far and beyond anything we could have expected. St.Petersburg, New York, Detroit (against all fucking odds) and D.C. were all particularly satisfying although not without the usual technical difficulties, guitars breaking and blood. Y'know, the usual.
You've articulated in interviews that you strongly feel your band could make inroads in America. Has this AM! trek strengthened that resolve or are Americans just a bunch of tin-eared rubes that couldn't tell an exciting band if said outfit were bending their grandfathers over their living-room couch?
Interesting image, thanks. The sheer quantity of Against Me and Ted Leo/Pharmacists fans of all ages, sizes and haircuts who came up to us unprompted and say they've enjoyed the show made the trip worthwhile. There was no point in us doing a headline tour when we would have been playing to the same people who went to see Mclusky. Get them young, get them enthusiastic and help them to expand their musical horizons a little.
Ultimately we just have to put ourselves out there, doing what we do and see what the hell happens. There are no certainties in this game, but I have no fear whatsoever.
While being furious players, you and Kelson are pretty fearless heckler slayers, as well. Was there a notable moment during this tour where you were impressed by your own between-song savagery? Were you and Kelson invited to any of our fine American parking lots to receive a complimentary beatdown?
Wise (wo)men know that pride comes before a fall, so I won't regale you with any examples of our biting wit. The key thing is to be yourself and to never go on stage with a script. No beatdowns as yet. People tend to listen; if they don't, we usually have the crowd on our side, that seething mass of flesh.
What are FOTL's next plans regarding America? Or are you running away after we elect a new president?
We'll be back if we're wanted, hopefully in a slightly better van. A headline tour, such as it is, will probably have to wait until we have a new record out; then we can bring the full, ridiculous show, unbridled sweat and all.
If you guys elect that sweating psychotic and his barmy mini-Margaret-Thatcher-with-honey-mustard-glaze sidekick, I fear the rest of the countries of the world may simply move planets in order to escape. Bush even made the British feel sorry for the French, which is quite an achievement. Ha. "Freedom fries," my fucking cock.
I know you're loathe to recommend any British bands. So let me put it this way: Which British bands should Americans throw lots of debris at if they come over?
Only cowards, idiots and friends playing pranks throw things at bands. Don't do it. Go home the second the urge takes hold and do something useful, like learning to cook. I'll recommend you some British comedy instead, whether for purchase or illegal download; your choice. The Thick Of It, Peep Show, Snuff Box and The League Of Gentlemen are particularly fine. For those with shorter attention spans, which isn't always a bad thing, Spaced or The IT Crowd. That's some pretty fucking funny shit right there.
You've got to allow me to thank Against Me!, Ted Leo and their crews as well. They've been the perfect hosts and touring partners. If you don't, I warn you, I'll start a ska band.
Last week, stage and television star Edie Adams died. Although she was a talented singer and Tony-winning actress, Adams was known as being a crucial foil for her husband, Ernie Kovacs, the comedic genius who was a major force in shaping both American comedy and television as a bona fide art form back in the '50s. Whether she was belting out a song or a "victim" of a Kovac-ian slapstick attack, Adams was a class act.
I was a hateful senior in high school ("Everyone in my school sucks as much as Journey. Why can't they listen to the Clash?"), when I chanced upon reruns of The Ernie Kovacs Show running on PBS. On one particular night, Kovacs dedicated a good part of the show to an impressionistic story taking place on a set rendered like a city. There was no dialogue in the "sketch," only musical accompaniment with Adams and other actors telling the story via dance. The classical music Kovacs used was downright confusing: It was as brash as a conquering hero, mysterious as a ghost story and melancholy as the loss of a loved one (sometimes all three emotions at once). My teenage brain was significantly blown and dammit, I had to have this piece of music as much as I needed a new copy of Pink Flag. This was my first exposure to Bela Bartok's Concerto For Orchestra, and it was all courtesy of a pair of TV visionaries. (Hey, I was too busy buying records to care about what was on TV back then.)
I never got to meet Edie Adams. I do know her son, Josh Mills, and he hooked me up with an autographed copy of her book, Sing A Pretty Song many years ago. I'd like to think that a little piece of her lives in my heart. It's the part that reminds me to be open-minded to anything because influence, passion and the extraordinary can crop up in the most unlikely places. Josh, my thoughts are with you and I hope the next time I make it out to L.A., you will tell me some fabulous stories about your remarkable mom.
