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March 24, 2008
QUICKLY
Yesterday, my Pastor Jeffrey Lancaster delivered the best Easter Sermon I've ever heard. It was really profound, highly enjoyable, and made clear objective truths rather than just hitting me on some selfish subjective level (something I often grumble about, pointlessly). Simply, it broadened my world-view without pandering to me personally, and reminded me why I need Easter. I highly recommend you listen to it. You can find it here. It's the March 23rd sermon.
Posted by Andytown at 09:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 19, 2008
RECENT ALBUMS I’VE BOUGHT / STOLEN / “BORROWED”
These will be, mostly, short.
ROBERT JOHNSON – THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS
According to every rock critic who ever lived and Eric Clapton, if aliens were attacking the planet, and the only way we could save it was by playing “Crossroads,” Robert Johnson is your man. Johnson’s story is so legendary it would probably be better if he and these twenty-three recordings never existed: born in the Mississippi Delta, traveling blues man, sold his soul to the devil, died when poisoned by strychnine-laced whiskey given to him by a jealous husband.
The hyperbole is pretty intense, but maybe deserved when you considered that all the Brit Invasion Blues guitarists modeled themselves after Johnson. In a typically overwrought passage from his (pretty great, actually) MYSTERY TRAIN, Greil Marcus writes, “When Johnson sang his darkest songs, terror was a fact, beauty only a glimmer, but that glimmer, and its dying away, lie beneath everything else, beneath all the images that hit home and make a home.” Like I said intense – the best thing he did for his legacy was die young.
So if I say I’m having a little trouble getting into his music, then it’s slightly my fault but probably more the problem of those who have promoted it. Yes, it’s neat to hear the original version of “Crossroads,” and there’s a definite “guy with a guitar singing about some woman who just walked out the door” quality to it. But as a legendary guitarist, I’m not seeing it, and this is probably because I know next to nothing about the guitar.
DESTROYER – TROUBLE IN DREAMS
It just came out and I just bought it yesterday. Didn’t even know it was coming it. As a fan of everything Dan Bejar has put out (his DESTROYER’S RUBIES was my favorite album of 2006, and his New Porno’s song MYRIAD HARBOR was my second favorite song of 2007). I’ve only listened TROUBLE once but already like it. It will not be a break through hit, but for me its candy.
MORRISEY and BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – Their entire catalogs
God, I love Torrents!
I haven’t had a chance to listen to the Morrisey yet, but I had never really listened to Springsteen’s TUNNEL OF LOVE, the follow-up to the redunkulously successful BORN IN THE USA. It’s pretty great.
By the way, if anyone finds out either of these guys are strapped for cash, let me know, and I’ll apologize for stealing their music. I figure Boss is okay with it since I’ve bought every one of his CDs since the 90s.
BLONDIE – PARALLEL LINES
Rightfully one of the best New Wave albums; the best non-Talking Heads album to come out the late 70s CBGB’s. Debbie Harry was born to be a star. This album rocks.
SAM COOKE – THE MAN WHO INVENTED SOUL (4 DISC BOX SET)
Even though he’s mostly singing other people’s songs, he sings them better than they do. I know frak-all about soul and R&B, but it seems to me that nobody masters the “Happy Guy singing about being miserable” better than young Mr. Cooke.
Top 5 Sam Cooke songs
1. TROUBLE IN MIND
2. LONELY ISLAND
3. I GOT A RIGHT TO SING THE BLUES
4. NOBODY KNOWS YOU WHEN YOU ARE DOWN
5. GET YOURSELF ANOTHER FOOL
RANDY NEWMAN – RANDY NEWMAN CREATES SOMETHING, 12 SONGS, GUILTY: 30 YEARS OF RANDY NEWMAN
The last one I stole, because it’s out of print, and the first two I bought. More on Randy Newman later: I plan on reviewing SAIL AWAY, one of my favorite albums. His first album (CREATES) finds him with a little more instrumentation than normal and sounding a lot like Bob Dylan. 12 SONGS is justifiably awesome, and paves the way for his masterpiece, SAIL AWAY.
CLEM SNIDE – SOFT SPOT
One of the AV Club Rock Critics said this was one of his favorites. It’s the only Clem album I’ve never owned. It’s pretty good, but I prefer their other albums.
NWA – STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON
Since I lost/had this stolen this in the Great CD Wallet Losing (and/or Stealing) of 2002, I figured I should own my all-time favorite rap album, and perhaps the only rap album I like unambiguously.
CAT POWER – JUKEBOX
Joyous. She’s my favorite weirdo chick singer, and she’s coming to Musicfest. Can’t wait.
VAMPIRE WEEKEND – VAMPIRE WEEKEND
I liked Paul Simon’s GRACELAND when it came out in 1984; why rerelease it now? Oh . . .
STEPHEN MALKMUS – REAL EMOTIONAL TRASH
My latest attempt at tracking with the solo career of Mr. Malkmus. Didn’t take.
BRITISH SEA POWER – DO YOU LIKE ROCK MUSIC?
Really great. I need to listen to it some more.
Posted by Andytown at 09:51 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 12, 2008
I GOT SEACRESTED
Plastic – Any material that has plasticity
Plastic – The fourth and final single released from Alanis Morissette's 1991 debut album Alanis.
Plastic – the general term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic polymerization products
Plastic – Inferior or not the real thing; ersatz (especially when made of plastic instead of an alterate material).
Last night was the first and last time I watched an episode of American Idol. This statement is and will be true. I have never watched it before, was unfamiliar with the format (though it was everything I predicted it to be), and will never watch it again. A friend was in town who wanted to see it, so I DVRed it and we watched it after dinner, while I graded papers and made prototypical sarcastic comments.
Here are the problems I had with American Idol™ before watching it:
1) It represents everything I hate about culture
2) It represents everything I hate about music
3) It represents everything I hate about style
4) It represents everything I hate about television
5) I was five feet from that Taylor Hicks dude at the Liberty Bowl and he seemed like a tool obsessed with his look and his celebrity.
6) It is a plastic model of plasticness watched by people who are either oblivious to its plasticity or in a state of hipster self-awareness about it.
7) I want to punch that Simon guy.
I have to say that I now have the same problems after watching it, along with these:
1) It is more plastic than I realized.
2) They do bad things with great songs (I had never considered this aspect before; for some damn reason, I honestly assumed they sang their own music); in this case, eleven amateur singers (and, I assume, their legions of handlers – who don’t get their own featurettes, another aspect of the plasticity) decided it would be a good idea to rearrange songs by one of the greatest bands ever. Lowlights: Eleanor Rigby and In My Life.*
3) There are now four people I want to punch, and one of them is a woman who once danced with MC Skat Cat.
But here is the real problem. For some reason, I assumed that the three extremely rich dorks who judge this thing used a lot of music lingo and showbiz jargon to judge these wannabes. Apparently, they do not – they make baseless criticisms and even more pointless praises. They should have no authority – two of whom have built pathetic but lucrative careers as talent judges, and the other who should be enjoying some distinct stage of being washed out and a lunatic – but they command a large stage.
Here is my imitation of their criticisms:
“You were off pitch at the beginning, and then you got better, but I wasn’t feeling it.”
Here are their praises:
“Girl, you so totally GOT it!”
When I grade my students’ papers, I try to avoid what we in academia (snicker) call “copia” – buzzwords for “good” or “bad” that often betray the fact that I may not have read their paper carefully. I try to make pointed, specific comments, because I want them to become better writers.
When these judges do their thing, it’s pure copia. There is nothing they, music professionals, can say that I couldn’t say. Their comments are random and arbitrary, yet I think there’s something more sinister going on: I believe all three are pawns of the network and the record company, promoting the amateur singers who are more TV friendly and marketable. We assume they know what they’re talking about, so we don’t expect to say anything thoughtful or insightful. Their subjective tastes are all that matter, yet they vocalize as though it has some objective authority. In a better culture, we would have disposed of this quickly and painlessly. Yet it lives, eats, consumes, vomits, reproduces, etc.
It has nothing to do with talent. It has everything to do with money.
It is, to use a word I haven’t used yet, plastic.
* By the way, voters (who, I am aware, don’t read this blog) – please vote for the dude who sang ACROSS THE UNIVERSE. I know that the dorks who judge this thing like it when amateur singers do creative things with songs they did not write, but that guy at least sang the song kind of like John Lennon did.
** This was hastily written and informed only by my own judgment. I'm sure it seems unoriginal, but I really have never read any criticism of the show before; in the past, I just rolled my eyes whenever I heard anyone talk about. If you have any great articles that expose this phenomenon for its plasticity, please send it to the Andytown.com direct office along with the URL and I will post it in 7-10 days. Andytown.com cannot respond to every email directly, but I'll put one of my interns on it.
If all this is too, I dunno plastic; here's thelegendary singer/songwriter I'm currently obsessed with.
Posted by Andytown at 06:30 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 02, 2008
A few things of note:
1. BEACH HOUSE is coming to the Hi Tone tomorrow night. I will be there.
2. This miniseries of John Adams is coming on HBO,. I hope it's good, and I hope they didn't just say, "With this cast, how can it fail? Roll it!" Rufus Sewell is playing Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison's name is nowhere in sight. I'm betting if the diminutive Mr. Madison shows up at all in this film, it will be standing behind Thomas Jefferson glaring disapprovingly at Adams. In the latest of my Thesis research, I've found that in the days preceding the convention, Madison and Jefferson wrote terse letters concerned that Adams was horse-trading with the public to secure his own high place in government.
But Sewell as Hamilton . . . isn't Sewell mainly playing aristocratic jackass/psychopaths now? Cuz that's what Adams thought he was (maybe not the psychopath, but pretty much all the founders accused him of wanting to pave paradise and put up a parking lot). So we may be getting the Hamilton picture through the subjective lens of Adams and pro-Adams biographers.
While in the FED PAPERS Hamilton kind of comes across as the guy who always shows up unannounced with your really cool best friend (Madison), he's still a remarkable figure who aristocratic leanings and urban focus played an important role in developing the America of the early 19th Century. He was also a genius, plain and simple, moreso than Madison, who was one hell of a statesman and a writer. From Hamilton's writing, you gather that he's incapable of simplifying his thoughts any more than he's doing, whereas Madison gives you one exquisite political metaphor after another.
Still it's a great cast, and will be the last thing I'll watch before dropping HBO. Unless CONCHORDS starts back up.
3. Good stuff on the AV Club:
Interview with Daniel Johnston
Books vs. Movie: Upton Sinclair's OIL and THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Written by Tasha Robinson, who is one of the most insightful, well-read, unpretentious, and unfickle critics working. I love her stuff, and I love this feature.
4. We just passed the ten year anniversary of Neutral Milk Hotel's defining album. Yes, you missed the ticker tape parade. But this article from SLATE commemorates it and is helpful in summarizing all the Jeff Mangum myths. I do like that the writer chooses not to categorize AEROPLANE as mere quirkacana, but sees it as a real, jarring masterpiece.
5. I'm in the middle of watching THE DARJEELING LIMITED again and I love it just as much as I did in the theaters. In fact, I laughed even more. Originally, I was thinking that Anderson's sense of funny dialogue was getting lost in his magnificently weird set-pieces. But all that changed when Owen Wilson accidentally calls Adrien Brody "Rubby."
But here's the thing: I have no idea whether this is a great movie or not. I'm starting to add Anderson to a select group of people/entities - Bruce Springsteen, Nick Hornby, SEINFELD - who I just cannot just objectively. I am completely uncritical in my adoration of Anderson. I love the scene where Brody stares at an extremely poisonous snake and says, "How much?" But most might find this piece to be a bit of goofiness usually reserved for Pee-Wee's playhouse and his neurotic talking furniture.
I even loved LIFE AQUATIC: I thought it was a great representation of the type of oddball communities that come together on these aimlessly motivated tasks, and the kind of celebrity that Bill Murray's Steve Zissou represents. I thought Noah Baumbauch brought a nice sense of sardonic lyricism to it, and that Seu Jorge's Bowie covers rocked my freaking freak off. The action scenes were at once funny and surprisingly exciting.
So I need to hear from some non-Anderson acolytes. If you saw the movie, please weigh in.
I'd like to hear some opinions of others who, unlike me, don't want to kidnap Anderson and keep him in my basement.
Posted by Andytown at 10:31 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack