Here I present unto you a marvelous discovery: Jeff Buckley reciting my favorite Edgar Allan Poe poem "Ulalume" - so much beauty crammed into one six-minute segment it makes you wanna cry.
The track is part of a spoken-word album produced by Hal Willner called "Closed on Account of Rabies," a compilation of various artists performing Poe's best-known works. Other highlights of the album include Iggy Pop, in his ironic Midwestern drawl, delivering a pitch-perfect, and disturbingly funny, version of "The Tell-Tale Heart; Marianne Faithfull reciting a seriously heartbreaking and utterly exquisite "Annabel Lee" (another personal favorite); and Christopher Walken performing "The Raven", a task for which he was presumably put on this earth to do.
The only way to listen to these tracks, by the way, is by assuming a recumbent position, preferably on something velvet, in a darkened room devoid of any temporal (i.e. digital) distractions. Seriously, don't try to listen to this at your desk and/or under fluorescents - doing so would be a serious effrontery to Poe's (and Buckley's) legacy and may incur some kind of a haunting. (Though a haunting would certainly add to the desired ambience.)
If I've been a little distant or mute (ok, more distant and mute than usual) over the past week, let me apologize: it's not you, it's me. I've been living in cyberspace.
I don't know why it took me so long to give in to the all-consuming powers of science fiction, but after reading William Gibson's seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer I have been gloriously converted. But first let me tell you: this book is not for everyone. It's a serious mindfuck, but a mindfuck that makes you work to feel the buzz, that requires you to sacrifice much of your energy, your mental stability, and your personal (and, you'll soon find out, deeply flawed) conception of reality in order to benefit from its mind-bending narcotics.
It's really difficult to give the novel a proper summary, because even though I've dedicated several sleepless nights towards an attempt at analysis, the storyline remains as layered and mysterious as when I had first read it - it truly takes on a life of its own, and trying to make logical sense of it is a rather fruitless activity. And this is probably the worst sales pitch for a book ever made in history by anyone ever.
But here are the basics: written by mad genius William Gibson in 1984 (Blade Runner territory), Neuromancer tells the story of Henry Case, a depressed, drug-addicted, prematurely-retired computer hacker living in a dystopian Japanese underworld called Chiba City. Once a talented and dangerous hacker, Case's central nervous system has been severely damaged by his former employer as punishment for theft, leaving him unable to access CYBERSPACE. [I capitalized cyberspace because this book marks the first appearance ever of the word "cyberspace." Yeah, William Gibson created that shit.]
The book follows Case as he's summoned by a mysterious employer to pull off a dangerous and complicated hack, with the help of a fierce street-samurai chick with Wolverine-style retractable nails called Molly Millions - an apocalyptically fantastical predecessor of Lisbeth Salander - in return for a cure.
If you are an obsessive like me, digesting a book as intense and affecting as Neuromancer can render other aspects of your reality as arcane and fictive as the diegetic story-world. Hence, the soundtrack to my life over the past week has been a little hectic, and more than a little paranoid, and I would like to share it with you because in my mind we're all living inside the matrix and this is probably what you're hearing anyway. Here's a small sample (trust me: a small sample is all you really need).
My discovery of this British electroclash band could not have come at a more apt time, as this is exactly how I imagine our cyber-dystopian apocalypse will sound. An exquisite slick of sound: fuzzy and precisely subdued, yet perfectly frightening in its phantasmagoric mania.
A Frames - "Black Forest II"
Teutonic paranoia in all its angular glory. Not so much a song as an ordered succession - a curation, maybe - of teeth-chattering, brain-piercing riffs and a militaristic spate of drumbeats, overlayed with that Manifesto-style vocal jeer.
Let me get something out of the way: I am not a feminist.
Whenever I tell someone this I always feel vaguely guilty, which I hate, and which is precisely why I've rejected personally endorsing the notion of "feminism." It's really the label itself that I reject, mostly because (without trying to spew broad or untrue generalizations), as a movement, it's become so laden with specific and threatening beliefs that seem so hypocritically static and hostile.
For one thing, I don't hate men, nor do I believe that doing so is the right way to gain equality and respect. I also don't believe in feeling guilty about wanting, or expecting, a respectful amount of male attention and chivalry; nor do I believe in the impossibility of being powerful and intelligent and a proud advocate for the female race whilst wearing something that makes your boobs look really good. Basically, I don't consider myself a feminist because I don't believe in the militancy of adhering to such a harsh classification, and I don't believe that doing so qualifies anyone to undermine those who do not. Which, really, is true of any fiercely upheld scene or movement.
BUT, politics on the matter aside, I should also say that I fucking love being a girl and I'm proud to be one -- I'm just not gonna stuff it down your throats.
AND, you can probably deduce that I never really latched on to the riot grrrl movement - a super-feminist punk movement that began in the early '90s as a kind of girls-only offshoot of the very masculine Pacific Northwest grunge scene. Really, though, I never got into it because I couldn't get into the music more than the fact that I don't necessarily adhere to their politics.
HOWEVER, upon recently discovering the band Bratmobile, my opinions on riot grrrl music may be changing. Funnily enough, they're perhaps one of the most brashly feminist bands to come out of the riot grrrl movement; and funnily enough, I, who have so blithely removed myself from any political agendas pertaining to womanhood, feel seriously empowered by their lyrics which are so undeniably fierce as to bring out the inner Emmeline Pankhurst in any self-respecting lady.
Bratmobile was created in my personal favorite kind of punk spirit - namely, the spirit of not knowing how to play any given instrument yet proceeding to form a band and play music anyway, which is precisely how Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman formed the band in '91. The results of such an experiment are oftentimes disastrous, but sometimes disaster results in the best, brattiest, messiest punk music ever.
Wanna hear it?
"Cherry Bomb"
A cover of a pro-female classic, redone in a purposefully overwrought, cartoonish facsimile of adolescent coquettishness.
"Brat Girl"
Some of the baddest, dirtiest, angriest lyrics I've heard from either a male or female band. Not for the weak of heart.
"Do You Like Me Like That?"
"You're talking politics on your pedestal/And your half-baked ideas of 'what it means to be a girl'/But you can't feel how we suffer or we bleed/You can't give us what we want, much less what we need"
"Gimme Brains"
Man-eating in the most literal sense of the word, backed by a catchy beat and energetic hand-claps. One may be tempted to call it sugary, but then you listen to the lyrics -- not so sweet.
Ska is one of the best things in the world, next to folk punk and peanut butter. This is a fact.
Unfortunately, ska music is a little misunderstood today. It gets a bit of a bad rap from the Third Wave, its most recent permutation - a hybrid/dilution, really - that became popular in the late '90s with bands like Reel Big Fish, Sublime, Mustard Plug, Rancid (to an extent), and (very early) No Doubt (ish). If you want a more comprehensive visual guide to the modern rude boy, this is exactly everything you need to know.
But ska has musical and cultural roots much deeper than its newest pop-punky, band-geeky, checkerboard-clad, skankin' sire. Ska music and rude boy culture is actually deeply influential to modern music and fashion, and is integral to many major British subcultures across several eras. (Sidenote: "skanking" is the dance that one does to ska music; literally, the goofiest, funnest, most endorphin-activating dance ever. Not that other thing.)
The first wave of ska (sometimes called "Trad") originated in 1960s Jamaican dance halls, combining Caribbean calypso with American R&B. The first wave laid the groundwork for ska's now-characteristic upstroke guitar, horns, and walking bassline - basically, all the elements that make it so compulsively hip-shakin' and happy, and also why at ska shows everyone is always yelling to "PICK IT UP!" Like, as in, "Pick up the beat," not your dignity off the floor when you try to start a skanking circle and no one joins you. BUT ANYWAY.
My favorite Trad ska song, and also one of the most well-known, is Toots and the Maytals' "54-46 (That's My Number)", which was later covered by Sublime:
So you may be thinking what these aggressively half-naked working-class skinheads are doing all over this happy Caribbean dancehall diddy. That's because skinheads like ska, too! (Who doesn't?) The traditional/Trojan skinheads (NOT the neo-Nazis) adopted ska music as their own when Jamaican immigrants brought the music to England in the late '60s/early '70s.
The second wave, or 2-Tone movement, came about in the late '70s, centered around London and Coventry, England. Started by bands like the Specials and the Toasters, and Jerry Dammers' 2-Tone Records label, the movement revived and updated first wave ska music and promoted unity between whites and blacks - hence ska's characteristic checkerboard pattern (and the name of the movement, duh). This is my favorite wave also because the original rude boys, who came about as a real street culture during this period, were so dapper and had the best dance moves.
Case in point: the Specials, "Too Much Too Young":
Let me just point out that the singer, Terry Hall, was 20 years old in this video. Hey, 20-year-old boys: PLEASE DRESS LIKE THIS.
Another great second wave song is "One Step Beyond" by Madness. The video is the awkwardest, 80s-est thing ever (which means that it is thoroughly wonderful), and they do that weird marching dance move thing that Emilio Estevez and Co. do to "We Are Not Alone" in The Breakfast Club. You know what I'm talking about.
There's really no way I can stuff more ska-y goodness in here, and I would imagine you wouldn't want me to. (To everyone who's made it this far into the post, I am impressed. Hi, Mom!) So let me just leave you with a STRONG SUGGESTION/COMMAND to 1) YouTube how to skank, 2) watch the video below, and 3) skank your little heart out! Level of sobriety is up to you.
(So I had to put this song up because it is a wonderful song and because it is eponymous to this particular blog post, but the Clash aren't really a ska band and this song, though definitely ska-tinged, is really just a salute to the rude boy culture by which the band was so influenced. OK, bye.)
"So I am nineteen years old and don't usually know what I'm doing, snap my thoughts out of the printed page, get my looks from other eyes, do not overtake dotards and cripples in the street for fear I will depress them with my agility, love watching children and animals at play but wouldn't mind seeing a beggar kicked or a little girl run over because it's all experience, dislike myself and sneer at a world less nice and less intelligent than me. I take it this is fairly routine?"
So I'd been seeing these posters plastered everywhere around my neighborhood over the past few days. Most of the time the various forms of self-promotion running rampant through this city go completely unnoticed, lost in a sea of millions of other people's projects, but these particular flyers were different. Mainly because they were awesome, and clearly DIY, and they looked like this:
I love those hand-drawn, chicken-scrawled, Sharpie'd punk show flyers from the '80s - basically, if it looks like it was done by an ADD-afflicted, snot-nosed fifteen year old hibernating in his parents' basement-turned-personal porno-den then I'll probably like how it looks. And that's exactly what these flyers looked like!
So I actually stopped to read them, and they turned out to be publicizing a video release party/concert by a band called Crazy & the Brains. Then I looked them up, and guess what? They're a FOLK PUNK BAND! It was like the pagan gods of cheap concerts, hybrid underground musical genres, and DIY poster art (because all of those gods do, in fact, exist) conspired to work exactly in my favor. It's pretty hard to find folk punk concerts in New York, because most of the bands are based in Bloomington and Gainesville and Lansing and other tertiary (eh, quaternary) cities of that ilk, so needless to say I immediately and adamantly dragged my trusty roommates to the show, this past Saturday at Webster Hall.
Luckily it turns out that Crazy & the Brains is GREAT, due in no small part to their energetic xylophonist and a cute frontman who's got those obnoxious mannerisms - the errant twitches, the cutesy snarls, the get-the-fuck-out-of-my-room-eye-rolls - vaguely reminiscent of Billie Joe Armstrong circa Sweet Children, pre-Green Day, when he actually was the snot-nosed fifteen year old of my poster-making dreams rather than a 35-year old just pretending to be.
The live show was more reminiscent of Sweet Children musically, too, than, say, the straight-up acoustic guitar and stand-up bass folk-punk of the scene's mainstay Andrew Jackson Jihad. It was a bit like a combo of the Black Lips' dirtied-up doo-wop and Wavves' crunchy stonerwave pop - but with a hint, of course, of that classic folk punk weirdness. (The singer/guitarist wore a sailor cap, an ink-splattered suit and a string of twinkle lights around his shoulders. So dapper.) (And also, the xylophone.) Though on their albums (you can buy and download them here), and in the video below, they've got a clearer folk punk sound and sensibility.
Anyway, the moral of the story is, read the flyers around the city! They can turn out to be kinda cool, maybe, sometimes. Actually the moral of the story is that xylophones are sadlyunderused.
Here's the video that was released for their song "Let Me Go."
So folk punk probably ranks somewhere in the top 10 on My Favorite Things In This World List, and I was going to do one giant post about it because that's how EXCITED it makes me, but lucky for you, I'm not going to do a monster post because 1) I'm not that ambitious and 2) even when I get excited it's usually not enough to turn me into someone who is ambitious. So I will present to you my favorite hybrid genre in small doses, starting with Mischief Brew.
But first I guess I should say something about folk punk, although it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like: an offshoot of punk rock that combines the punk ethos and attitude with a folk sound, which means that lots of folk punk bands include banjos and mandolins and other Southern-porch-y instruments, as well as influences from gypsy music, ceili Irish folk, etc. It's also strongly tied to crust punk (the ones who wear bum flaps and go dumpster diving) and anarcho-punk. Folk punkers, I think, are actually the punkest of all the punks, because the fashion element of its parent genre is almost completely nonexistent, mainly because most folk punkers are poor and/or vegan and/or anarchists and so throwing down $120 on a pair of Docs is probably not how they choose to spend their time and money.
The thing that sums up folk punk the best is their symbol, which looks like this:
It's an ANARCHY HEART! It symbolizes "Love is freedom," as opposed to the traditional anarchist Circle-A, which stands for "Anarchy is the mother of order" (as per Proudhon's manifesto, but that's another post for another day). How awesome is this symbol? If you don't respect the folk punkers now then you have no heart and can stop reading now.
Anyway, I promised I would keep the lecturing to a minimum so I'll shut up and leave you with Mischief Brew, aka Erik Petersen, aka the punkest of the folk punkers. Erik Petersen is probably one of the coolest human beings on the planet and his lyrics are hilarious and intelligent and exquisite in that Marxist power-to-the-lumpenproletariat kind of way. (That's a thing, right?)
"Thanks, Bastards!"
The perfect anarcho-folk punk thesis statement. It also happens to be stuck in my head all the time. (Seriously. All. The. Time.)
"Coffee, God, and Cigarettes"
Hilariously satirical. (Or is it ironic? I think that I will never understand the difference.)
