Books are People Too (v)

Radiohead - Permanent Daylight

"Let us turn now to the most elementary principle of just war theory, universality. Those who cannot accept this principle should have the decency to keep silent about matters of right and wrong, or just war. If we can rise to this level, some obvious questions arise: for example, have Cuba and Nicaragua been entitled to set off bombs in Washington, New York, and Miami in self-defense against ongoing terrorist attack? Particularly so when the perpetrators are well known and act with complete impunity, sometimes in brazen defiance of the highest international authorities, so that the cases are far clearer than Afghanistan? If not, why not?...
As Colin Powell explained the National Security Strategy (NSS) of September 2002 to a hostile audience at the World Economic Forum, Washington has a "sovereign right to use force to defend ourselves" from nations that possess WMD and cooperate with terrorists, the official pretexts for invading Iraq. The collapse of the pretexts is well known, but there has been insufficient attention to its most important consequence: the NSS was effectively revised to lower the bars to aggression. The need to establish ties to terror was quietly dropped... "The new approach is revolutionary," Henry Kissinger wrote, approving of the doctrine but with tactical reservations and a crucial qualification: it cannot be "a universal principle available to every nation." The right of aggression is to be reserved for the US and perhaps its chosen clients. We must reject the most elementary of moral truisms, the principle of universality -- a stand usually concealed in professions of virtuous intent and tortured legalisms."

Noam Chomsky

On 30 July 2006 an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in Qana that housed refugees, which Israel said was near Hezbollah rocket launching sites; 60 people died, including 37 children.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman accused Hezbollah of possibly being responsible for the civilian deaths. Dan Gillerman: "Israel has besieged and asked repeatedly for the residents of Qana to leave. I would not be surprised if the Hizbollah made them stay."

{Read more by Chomsky}

Macaca Mulatta

Yes, and then I checked my email to find a short story in the form of a press release from a man with the exotic name of Chris Chinchilla (who was once of Art Brut), and for a moment I thought I would have to pack my bags again for another whirlwind trip to the Orient to dabble with red-haired British aristocrats adrift in a sea of imperial meaninglessness, but no! Instead I found myself listening to a demo of a band by the name of Macaca Mulatta, and the trip was not to the stifling heat of voluminous and threatening eastern gardens, but to stuffy and undersized city garages, where hearing your mate's neighbour's band roar through songs like 'Dancing on a Weeknight' makes you check your watch so as not to be late at the darkly-lit pub, where Paul Weller will play with the Dead Kennedys, and give out about governments and the price of a pint at the same time. And the pub stays open all night!

Defeated
Dancing on a Weeknight
Change

I Can't Believe I Haven't Posted This Yet

It's quite possibly the best pop song this year. Really, even though the first time you hear it the whistling seems slightly wrong and awkward, and then the vocals fail to wrap themselves pleasingly around your ears like a scarf protecting from the Swedish winter - but then the chorus! Oh, the chorus, and then the next verse seems near perfect, and by the end of the song it's clear that it's a masterpiece, so you hit the button and play it again, without the slightest fear of getting sick of it too soon. Wonderful.

Peter Bjorn and John - Young Folks

Other examples of indie-pop perfection:

The Boy Least Likely To - Be Gentle With Me
The Spinto Band - Oh Mandy
Page France - Chariot

The Amusements

"Does Israel give a rat's arse about what anybody thinks of it anymore? Blowing up people left, right and centre, and then addressing the United Nations. Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off. To the Palestinians: fuck off. You can't be living there. Fuck off to some place you don't come from. We applied for planning permission in the old Testament. It's just come through."
Tommy Tiernan

My Brightest Diamond - Dragonfly (video)

Pitchfork direct us to The Dears' new song, 'Bandwagoneers', and subtitle it: 'A Brief History of Blogging'. Very clever. We get it, no one is original but Pitchfork. They were on the internet first, they're the best. We should just quit now.

Ear Farm has some live Unicorns.
Beirut plays the Olympia in Dublin on the second of November with Calexico.
Hi Fi Popcorn has a sunny summer mix.
And I am finally getting into Tapes' n' Tapes via Insistor - I don't know why it took so long.

Just Say No.

"Having a substance should not be considered a crime, because so far it's victimless. If you want to talk about distributing substances that are lethal, yeah, that oughta be brought up, but then, let's be serious. Tobacco is far ahead of anything else. Alcohol is second. Hard drugs are way down the bottom, and furthermore most drug use, though it's very harmful for the person, has very little social effect. The crime associated with hard drugs is mostly a consequence of criminalization. [Q: so should we go after the people who make cigarettes?] If the principle is, let's not get lethal substances out to the public, the first one you'd go after is tobacco, the next one you'd go after is alcohol, way down the list you'd get to cocaine, and sort of invisibly low you'd get to marijuana. [Q: a lot more violence comes from someone snorting some coke?] No, it doesn't. It comes from purchasing coke and selling coke, but that's because it's illegal. That's because of the criminalization of it, not the effect. There're good studies of this. Tobacco doesn't happen to cause violence, but alcohol definitely does. The deaths that are alcohol related are way beyond the deaths that are hard drugs related, if you separate, in the hard drugs case, the deaths that are the result of criminalization. So yeah, when you have drug gangs and narcotraffickers fighting for turfs and so on, sure, then there's gonna be plenty of killings. Just like when you had Al Capone running Chicago. But that's a consequence of the criminalization, not the drugs. What drugs tend to do is make people passive. Alcohol on the other hand makes them violent. There're extensive studies in the criminality literature, and you can take a look at the results. The basic result is that tobacco related deaths are way beyond anything else, just an order of magnitude greater. Furthermore those are not just to the user, they're to everybody else. So deaths from passive smoking alone are much higher than drug related deaths. Furthermore they're transferred on to the next generation. Alcohol is the next biggest killer, and it's a killer not only to the people who use it, which is bad enough, but also to others, because of its relation to violence. Next is things like hard drugs, and they are rarely harmful to others, they're harmful to the user. When you get down to marijuana, last time I looked there had been about 60 million users and not one known case of overdose. I mean it's not good for you, undoubtably, but it's probably at the level of coffee. And in fact notice that there has never been a medical reason for criminalizing marijuana. I've looked through the history of this if you're interested, I don't know if you want me to run through it, but it's an interesting history. Very commonly substances are criminalized because they're associated with what's called the dangerous classes, you know, poor people, or working people. So for example in England in the 19th century, there was a period when gin was criminalized and whiskey wasn't, because gin is what poor people drink. That's kinda like the sentencing for crack and powder. In the early stages of Prohibition in the United States, one of the targets was immigrant workers, these guys hanging around the saloons in New York, gotta go after them. The rich guys in upstate New York, they're gonna drink no matter what, you know, they wanna come home after work, they'll drink. But, go after those guys. What about marijuana? Marijuana was brought in by Mexicans, and the first criminalization of marijuana was in the southwest, in the states. It was in New Mexico, later Utah, and so on, and it was specifically targeted against Mexicans. It didn't get criminalized in the United States until shortly after Prohibition ended. After Prohibition ended we had this huge bureau of narcotics, and it had to do something. So they discovered, you know, that marijuana is gonna do all kind of terrible things to you. The Senate testimony about this is mind-boggling. They did have a representative of the American Medical Association, who said we don't have any medical evidence about this. He was shut up, denounced, you know, get rid of him right away. Then they found somebody else, this is literally true, they found a pharmacologist, a guy teaching at Temple University, who was doing experiments with marijuana and dogs. The testimony is hilarious, you really have to read it. They brought this guy and he testified that when he gave marijuana to dogs they went insane, you know, they'd do all kind of things. And then, some senator or somebody asked him, this is from memory, so it's probably a little off, but something like this, it's in the thirties. They asked the guy, well have you ever tried marijuana on humans? So he said, yeah, he tried it on himself. And he said, well, what happened? He said, I turned into a vulture, I started flying around the room. So they, oh my god, this stuff is terrible, it makes people insane. And it was declared by Congress that marijuana makes people insane. But then something happened. It turned out that lawyers, defense lawyers, got the idea, OK, I can use this for an insanity defense. So if a guy who killed 3 cops, his lawyer would say, well, you know, he had marijuana before so he was insane, so you can't do anything. And people were getting off on charges, like cop killing for example, on the claim that they had marijuana. So all of a sudden it was discovered that marijuana doesn't make you insane. Congress decided, sorry, it doesn't make you insane, because we wanna wipe that out. The next idea was, marijuana is an entry drug, it's the drug you take and then you go on to something else. Well, there was never any evidence for that, but that was decided. And then in the early fifties, something else happened, marijuana is being brought in here by Red Chinese to poison the American population and destroy us. So therefore we gotta stop marijuana. And it kinda goes on like this. Actually, the peak of marijuana use was as I said, in the seventies, but that was rich kids, so you don't throw them in jail. And then it got seriously criminalized, you know, you really throw people in jail for it, when it was poor people."

"After September 11th I had tons of interviews everywhere, except the United States of course, and often it was national radio and TV. A couple of times it turned out to be Irish television and BBC back to back, and the difference in reaction was startling. If I said this much on Irish TV, OK, discussion over, everyone understands what I'm talking about. You try to say it on BBC, you have to go on for like about an hour to explain to them what you mean. The Irish sea is a chasm, and it just depends who's been holding the whip for 800 years and who's been under it for 800 years."

Noam Chomsky

The Arcade Fire - Maps (Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover)
Sufjan Stevens - Decatur (live)
Michael Zapruder's Rain of Frogs - The Alchemist
Thom Yorke - Harrowdown Hill (video)
Bicycles - Gotta Get Out
Cassettes Won't Listen - The Sidewalk Cruise
The Rapture - Get Myself Into It
Archie Bronson Outfit - Dart for my Sweetheart
Shane Bartell - I Don't Believe
Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans (live)
Muse - Starlight
Radiohead - Pyramid Song
Trentalange - Lonely
The Psychadelic Avengers - Raumschiffkommandante (Der Tante Renate mix)
Bicycles - Paris Be Mine
Paul Weller - That's Entertainment (live)
The Black Neon - Ralph & Barbara
The Noisettes - Scratch Your Name
Sufjan Stevens - The Fifty States Song (live)
Radiohead - Wolf at the Door

Books Are People Too (iv)

Wolf Parade - Modern World

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."

Neil Postman

I know that the choice of 'Modern World' for this particular song might seem a bit cliched, but I really do feel that it fits. I try not to rely on lyrical matter alone when I match these songs to books, but the overall tone, the little world each of them builds that lasts until the song ends, or you reach the last page. I'm finding this project a lot harder than I had originally expected it to be (Lolita, anyone?).
'Modern World' has a real sense of hopelessness in it. The inexorable motion which begins the song strummed out over two minor chords matches the sense Bernard Marx has of being the only one without the system, and powerless to try and do anything to change it. Wolf Parade's music in general has a gloomy complexity which suits the detailed dystopia created by Huxley. Maybe they would have got on well together.

{Read Brave New World here}

In Defence Of Music Blogs

Depending on what you read, music blogs are either the wave of the future, revolutionising the music industry from below, and levelling the playing field for bands worldwide, or, they're some self-loving ego-inflating elitist students incapable of writing anything original, with the same taste as everyone else, only endorsing that which is not popular, and deriding it once it becomes so. They are nothing but amateur wannabe journalists, sorely lacking a spellcheck, and obsessed with their own non-existent authority.
Well, it's not that simple. Unless, you're this guy, who apparently hates our guts. He sees that the emperor has no clothes - who knew Good Hodgkins and YANP were 'black holes of bandwidth? Although, he needn't give any justification, being a real journalist, and he probably wouldn't have heard the bands he's recommending but for music blogs anyway.
The Washington Post figures that music blogs are a new, sub-par version of radio - and what's worse: "Most of them are created by and for the deeply involved, who tend to sneer at music that's too popular."
The easiest thing to do is criticise bloggers for apparent elitism, and it's a hard thing to defend against, since anyone who writes about anything with the hope that someone will pay attention clearly thinks they have something to say, just as anyone who plays a gig is guilty of the same thing. It's important to note the good things about music blogs, because they're not going away.
Even if you point out that most of them recieve the same press releases from the same labels and bands - what makes you think that the mainstream press is any different? Bloggers never have to write about what they dislike, they do not have to fill up space or make a deadline.
Why all the hatred? Maybe more information needs to be known (do any bloggers actually consider themselves elitist?) to disprove some of the most unedifying cliches. Everyone seems reluctant to defend mp3 blogs, but for all their faults, the best ones - and even the average ones - beat most popular music magazines any day. Perhaps they're just afraid of losing readers?

Tapes'n'Tapes - Insistor
Lily Allen - Smile
Cold War Kids - Hospital Beds
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - In This Home On Ice

Books Are People Too (iii)

Joanna Newsom - Peach, Plum, Pear

{Read the first chapter}

" By the time I began school in 1938, Lindbergh's was a name that provoked the same sort of indignation in our house as did the weekly Sunday radio broadcasts of Father Coughlin, the Detroit-area priest who edited a right-wing weekly called Social Justice and whose anti-Semitic virulence aroused the passions of a sizable audience during the country's hard times. It was in November 1938-the darkest, most ominous year for the Jews of Europe in eighteen centuries-that the worst pogrom in modern history, Kristallnacht, was instigated by the Nazis all across Germany: synagogues incinerated, the residences and businesses of Jews destroyed, and, throughout a night presaging the monstrous future, Jews by the thousands forcibly taken from their homes and transported to concentration camps. When it was suggested to Lindbergh that in response to this unprecedented savagery, perpetrated by a state on its own native-born, he might consider returning the gold cross decorated with four swastikas bestowed on him in behalf of the Führer by Air Marshal Göring, he declined on the grounds that for him to publicly surrender the Service Cross of the German Eagle would constitute "an unnecessary insult" to the Nazi leadership."

Books Are People Too (ii)

Sunset Rubdown - Swimming

Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.

God's lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees!

{Read poems from Ariel}

Books Are People Too

{This is the first in a new series of posts in which I pick a book from my overloaded bookshelf and bravely attempt to find a song to match it, so as to encourage people who have read the book to listen to the song, and people who like the song to read the book. Because there's really no need to read Dan Brown.}



The Chalets - David Boring


McJob: A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one.
Historical Underdosing: To live in a period of time when nothing seems to happen. Major symptoms include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news broadcasts.
Historical Slumming: The act of visiting locations such as diners, smokestack industrial sites, rural villages - locations where time appears to have been frozen many years back - so as to experience relief when one returns back "to the present".
Survivulousness: The tendency to visualize oneself enjoying being the last remaining person on Earth. "I'd take a helicopter up and throw microwave ovens down on the Taco Bell".

Buy Generation X

Review: Bring Me The Workhorse

Listening to this album, playing it from beginning to end, and letting yourself into each song until you don't notice what's outside - it's like living with a manic-depressive. I mean this in the best possible way. It begins with the end of the world, and continues in the same fashion - drama and emotion colliding the same way the strings and guitars crash into one another.
After setting the tone with the angry couplet 'Something of an End' and 'Golden Star', both songs which firmly grab both arms of the listener and bring them into the party, the album calms down abruptly with 'Gone Away', a lonely piece reminiscent of Antony Hegarty crossed with Edith Piaf, and 'Dragonfly', a far more happy and jaunty affair. It becomes clear that the songwriter will not hesitate to leap from metaphorical mountaintop into dark hollows, and it's here that this collection of songs shines - for the sheer range of emotion on display, its sincerity and resolve never weakens, the grip on the listener is never loosened. Whether it's the rage on 'Freak Out', where Shara murmers "We could tear his heart out", or the sadness of 'We Were Sparkling', you know you will be there to hear the next piece. The often lengthy pauses between songs only serves to strengthen the feeling that you are witnessing wildly contrasting emotions from the same person, who knows you are not going anywhere.
I don't see any particular reason to tell you what the album sounds like; you probably already know, and if not, you can find out now. This isn't a magazine - all you need to know is that this album is excellent, and deserves to be counted among the great albums of the year.

Download:
Something of an End
Golden Star
Disappear

Related:
Interview with My Brightest Diamond
Read another review at Stage Hymns

Ha!

Sorry, just too tired to do anything except give you my favourite non-album Sufjan track - because I bought The Avalanche today and I like it - some live My Brightest Diamond because I've been listening to her album and I love it, and some rare Arcade Fire because I've started dreaming about what their new album will be like.

Sufjan Stevens - Borderline
My Brightest Diamond - Disappear (live)

The Arcade Fire

Accidents
Cars and Telephones
William Pierce
Sonata
Surf City Eastern Block


"My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music."
Vladimir Nabokov

Giving Directions

This is going to be one of those posts where I tell you where to go today, because I'm too busy to implement all the wonderful plans I have for this blog. I have so many, and they're all brilliant! But alas, today I can only point you in the direction of other sources of brilliance, and Pitchfork.

First, read up on the developing Arcade Fire album, which sounds like it will be the best thing since Win Butler made sliced bread. Producer Scott Colvburn reveals much, and it sounds glorious:

"During the first take, I became overwhelmed by the grandeur of the whole thing. I heard that piece in it's finished state and it was magnificent! Tears rolled out of my eyes. I don't know what came over me, but it was a complete emotional release. The problem was that there were mics all around me, so I really couldn't sob. So I'm trying to hold back any kind of vocal component to this overwhelming joy I was experiencing.
When the take was over, I took off my headphones and dryed my eyes on my shirt. James asked if I was OK and I said, "yeah man, that was a great take!". I looked at Regine with my red eyes and said, "awesome!" and then I thought..."who's the pussy now?"

What better way to celebrate the Solstice than recording a pipe organ in a catholic church! I can not wait for you to hear this song. Every time I listen to the rough mix and it hits that key change I get choked up. Prepare yourself world! This record is simply amazing!" {read more}

Next, and possibly more importantly, go to Ryspace and download all the live My Brightest Diamond that you can handle - go now!
Once you've done that, go here and here and here and get your fill of Regina Spektor radio sessions.

And then download all these:

The Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies)
The Pipettes - Why Did You Stay?
Beirut - Postcards From Italy
Final Fantasy - Arctic Circle
Sunset Rubdown - Stadiums and Shrines II
Les Mouches - Close To You
Sufjan Stevens - Niagara Falls
My Brightest Diamond - Golden Star
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Upon This Tidal Wave Of Young Blood
Rademacher - It Really Shouldn't Matter
Division Day - Bad Black Moon
Wolf Parade - Shine A Light
The Decemberists - Engine Driver
The White Birch - Your Spain
Spoon - I Turn My Camera On
The Arcade Fire - Winter For A Year
The Chalets - Nightrocker (2fm session)

Hurrah for music!

Muse and Pipettes - Repost. Re? Post.

Oh, what a hot and crazy week it is here! Not only can I not enjoy it, I barely even have time to post here, and even when I do, I seem to just be reposting different songs as requested. So here are some more Muse and Pipettes b-sides, and there'll be more Muse that I haven't posted soon.

Muse
Pink Ego Box
Fury
Eternally Missed
I Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You

The Pipettes
Magician Man
Guess Who Ran Away With The Milkman?

Be sure and grab My Brightest Diamond live at Ryspace - it'll be up any time this week, and I can assure you she is amazing live, hopefully her covers of Nina Simone and Prince will be available.

The Credibility Gap

This is the first real essay/article on this blog, so bear with me. It's a little long and a bit confusing, but it deals with something that directly affects you. It is the result of lots of thoughts fumbling in one direction, and some ideas inspired by a recent (and very divisive) post at Good Hodgkins. It's about what Ryan calls the 'Garden State effect' - the title describing the build-up of a new Shins fanbase following their appearance in Zach Braff's film. Read it, noting especially the various reactions in the 126 comments. His essay is more about how success can bring irritating people who spoil shows into a band's fanbase - this essay is more about why music fans find these people irritating - and how they react to a band's success in the first place. It's also twice the length. It's a little like what James Dean Bradfield said recently about the explosion of Nirvana into a new mainstream after Nevermind, and judging by the amount of Kurt hoodies, ever since then:
"They (Nirvana) destroyed a generation of people - they gave them a gateway to an alternative world without getting a badge first and took them to that world which, at the end of the day, was just bad metal."
This is the bad taste left in your mouth when you see someone you know you cannot stand enjoying music you love; the same frustrating, intangible feeling. Trying to explain it, I ended up using some sociological terms, so I warn you, this gets deep.
Essentially, this debate is about two things: the forces that form and create a fanbase or target market, and the existence of supposed hipsters/scenestars/ indie kids/ style bandits/ posers/ fakers or OC brats. The latter theme is the hardest to focus on - how do you define a hipster without sounding like one, or worse, without sounding like an elitist musical-taste snob-blogger who will never admit to being one? But let's start with the easier stuff: Marx and Baudrillard (aaarrghh!).
In 'The Communist Manifesto' of 1848, Karl Marx said a lot of things. One of these was his prophecy of the end of capitalism. This downfall would be brought about by a 'crisis of production' resulting from a concentration of property and capital in the hands of fewer and fewer men (the inevitable monopolies) and the fact that they employ more and more workers (who, being so many, earn less and less, please bear with me) - eventually, there is no-one left to buy their products, which they keep making (yes, this is a simplified view of Marxism) - in other words, capitalism as Marx saw it would continue as it always had, by making the rich richer and the poor poorer, and leaving no consumer. Okay?
Today it is the consumer that the system relies on, and less so the worker. In the last half of the last century, companies began to work to build markets for their products, rather than products for existing markets - explaining the popularity of so many things that are no good for us. In one word: advertising. Public relations, press relations - the motto for the 21st century is not 'Workers of the world, unite!' but 'the Customer is always right'.

Anyway. Today, music is, in these strict terms, just another commodity to be marketed at us - something mp3 bloggers are well aware of. If you're reading this, (let's say you are) you probably feel that indie/alternative music ( generally meaning music existing outside the mainstream) is better than popular music. Here's where the debate gets really tricky - while being popular is by no means reason enough to condemn anything, does it necessarily mean it's good?
Oscar Wilde once said that "Everything popular is wrong". Obviously, that is meant to be argued, but nobody could argue that a book like this is anywhere near as good as anything by Wilde, or Nabokov, or Kurt Vonnegut, yet it is known where they are not. Anti-conformity is a vital part of 'indie culture' but it shouldn't affect something as basic as music taste.
To take an obvious example - teenagers who dress in black, and cite Richey Edwards and Kurt Cobain as their idols. It is mostly safe to say that they do not know depression, they do not cut themselves or genuinely contemplate suicide, but they show the outside signs anyway. What they enjoy is the simulation of these feelings (here's the Baudrillard), not the genuine emotion that drives the songs, but the effect of the songs on them. They like the signifiers - the intense world-view, the rock'n'roll martyr, upsetting their parents - but not what is signified: the genuine angst and pain, something which cannot be picked up and marketed, unlike a musician's fashion sense. Crucially: they do not see the difference as important.
As everyone noticed, teenage angst paid well, and therefore it was marketed, often very obviously. Like Coupland's Generation X, our generation (blogs, mp3s and MySpace) are distrustful of being marketed at, though not in an 'anti-capitalist' way. We do not like that things which are personally meaningful can be used to entice us for someone else's gain. When I see people I never liked at a concert I have been waiting weeks for, my first thought is that they took the easy way, the marketable way - they do not know the emotional root of the songs and I do - they do not know that there is even a difference. This feeling does not stand up to scrutiny, it's just the elitist impulse involved.
This is why there is such value accorded to liking something before it's popular - being part of it before it's co-opted into a system of marketing, and diluted to reach a greater audience. It has to appeal to you before it is picked up and designed to appeal to you.
The simple definition of a hipster is the person to blame for something wonderful being coldly analysed and marketed so no-one knows the difference. They fall for the marketing, just like the people who fall for spam emails and keep them coming to everyone else. When it comes to something you can form a real emotional connection to, it's surely better to like them for a reason no one controls than for reasons they do.

You do not grow to dislike something because it is popular, rather because you grow to fear you no longer enjoy it for the reasons you once did. The emotional connection has been usurped - as Marxism suggests, you fear your needs have been manufactured, just like a supposed need for Coke and Nike and other brands that kids learn to demand. One result of a system of non-stop marketing (how many thousands of brands do you see in a day?) is that it becomes hard to tell whether you really do have your own taste in music, or art, or fashion.
Initially, you love a band because they are great - that is your reason. But if they begin to enter the mainstream, that reason is soon under threat from the new ones presented to you. You can become alienated from your original link with the music far too easily. That explains a fear so common among music-lovers, the same anxiety I felt when I heard Joanna Newsom's 'This Side of the Blue' on a television advert: my precious connection with the song - all the times I listened to it alone at night - was to be threatened. And the great, wonderful, essential part of music is that connection, if you feel it, you want it to last, you want to protect it. So we protect it with distrust, the only weapon we have.
It's not surprising that loving music should seem to be in opposition with big business's effort to market it - the greatest recent shock to the music industry was Napster and all it ushered in, the effective communisation of people's music collections. What do we call all this then? The Credibility Gap? The Really Complicated Problem Relating To Music And Marketing? The Hipster Syndrome? Oh well. At least I've offered an explanation for the whole thing, which is much better than feeling frustrated without knowing why.

Very Simple Version:
1 - For capitalism to become humane and survive, marketing was invented. It is a crucial part of modern society.
2 - As a result of advertising's spectacular level of influence, we worry about being marketed at beyond our awareness and control. This extends to all products, including music.
3 - It is easy to get into music for the marketable reasons - that is why they are marketed. Advertising, taken up by a larger audience, makes no room for a personal emotional connection. Therefore, popular reasons challenge personal ones.
4 - We hold on very tightly to our connections with our favourite music, and distrust others who seem to love it for different reasons. It becomes increasingly less likely that others will experience the music in such a natural way.
5 - These people, to us, are fakes. They are happy to settle for marketed reasons, and do not try to form personal relationships to music, instead settling for the comfort of hype and trends. Even crap bands have marketed qualities, and marketing makes it harder to know the difference.
6 - For this reason, people often fear the entry of their favourite bands into the mainstream. And it's not elitism - if it was, bloggers wouldn't be promoting the music they love to as many readers as possible.
7 - You need to read the whole thing.

Play Hipster Bingo!
Read Generation Milchkaffee - a German account of hipster lifestyle

Joanna Newsom - This Side of the Blue

"Carrying his language and his new philosophy like concealed weapons, the hipster set out to conquer the world." -- Partisan Review, 1948

"I don't know if U2 started it, or The Stones or Oasis but a lot of bands think in terms of: 'I'm going to be the biggest band in the world. Fuck all those bands who've got no ambition'. I think that's a total crock of shit.
There's nothing less interesting to me than the idea of marketing the fuck out of something so people are forced to like it. Some bands are just manipulating people to buy music. That's how 90 per cent of the record industry works! It's basically the same as selling a fucking toaster or a cruise package." -- Win Butler, 2007

"I cringe to ever write this post, as if It needs to be said, but some people seem to not have figured out that the NME has never printed an article that doesn't take all the quotes out of context, and put some things in bold that make it seem like people are talking shit about each other!" -- Win Butler, a little later in 2007

"By turning a great song into a jingle, advertisers have achieved the ultimate: a meaningless product has now been injected with your meaningful memory of a song," he said. "The songs and the artists who have created them have power and cultural value, that's why advertisers pay out millions for them. Once you have taken the cash, you, your song and your audience are forever married to the product." -- Tom Waits

the last thing we remember.

Here's some music I've been listening to lately, freaking out the customers at work and such. It's about the only time I have to listen to music these days, it seems. Oh, woe betide the cruel life of a souvenir shop worker!

The Noisettes - Scratch Your Name - new single from London rockers, who are apparently something like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs fronted by Billie Holiday. Their live show is said to be revelatory.
The Go! Team - Bull in the Heather (Sonic Youth cover)
Arcade Fire - Alligator Mine
Arms - Tiger Tamer
Final Fantasy - Honour the dead or else (live)
The Rakes - 22 Grand Job (live)
Xn - Vito's Ordination Song (cover)
Cassettes Won't Listen - The Freed Pig (Sebadoh)
Beirut - New Song (live)
Dräp en Hund - 13 year old rock at Absolut Noise.
And since I am officially disappointed by The Eraser, here's some older Thom Yorke material:

Thom Yorke & Bjork - I've Seen It All
Thom & Beck - I'm Set Free
After The Goldrush
U.N.K.L.E. feat Thom - Rabbit in your Headlights
Radiohead - Nude (fan mix - more here)

First essay coming up later - read this first, if you haven't already.

Pipettes B-sides

Reposting as requested. Enjoy, they're all worth hearing, Pipettes fans. Listen here.

Guess Who Ran Away With The Milkman?
Magician Man
Sometimes Always (Jesus and Mary Chain cover, with Brakes)
Your Guitars Are Wasted On Me
Judy (acoustic)
It Hurts To See You Dance So Well (early version)
KFC (with members of the Go! Team and DJ Scotch Egg)
Why Did You Stay? (acoustic)
Why Did You Stay? (album version)

Also, check out these excellent posts, at Kwaya Na Kisser and Kill Your Co-Workers, and be sure to come back here later for another, much bigger post. It's quite exciting.

We Are All Of Walking Abortion

Oh no we're not.
Oh yes we are.
No we're not! Why are we, anyway?
Well, basically... The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an incomplete X (female) gene, that is, it has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion, aborted at the gene stage. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples. Since everyone has a father (unless.... ) we are all of walking abortion.
That's bollocks.
Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.
It is now technically feasible to reproduce without the aid of males (or, for that matter, females) and to produce only females. We must begin immediately to do so. Retaining the male has not even the dubious purpose of reproduction!
What is this?
SCUM! Society for Cutting Up Men.
You mean SFCUM.
No, only major words get their initials in. Up is a major word.
This is dragging on a bit, I think.
Yup. Having a debate with Valerie Solanas without Valerie Solanas is tough. But the music is good.
Never ever try this dialogue thing again. Please.
Oh, okay.

Manic Street Preachers - Radio 1 Session
Of Walking Abortion
She Is Suffering
Yes

Mausoleum (demo)

{note) I will soon be reposting those Pipettes songs that have been requested, so don't think I'm ignoring you. I'm just working a lot. And this one was also requested:

The Rakes - The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect

i need sunshine

It's a saturday, and a nothing day, because it hasn't once stopped raining. So, in the absence of anything else, here are the much-requested Spencer Krug songs from last week, as well as some Chalets - they've just opened a merchandise section on their site, with everything from t-shirts to tattoos, including an excellent Nightrocker patch. Did you know David Hasselhoff's first album was called Nightrocker? Yup.
Also, you can read about more fearmongering about music blogs by mainstream writers here - it seems blog attention will do more harm than good, and damage credibility in the eyes of the more established press. I'm not paranoid, but it feels like there is always someone writing off this whole area of the music press echo chamber - Pitchfork especially seem to try and patronise bloggers, typecasting them as hype-mad bandwagon-jumpers. This happens, but it's hardly the main characteristic of mp3 blogging. But fear not! I have a plan.

Wolf Parade - I'll Believe In Anything (CBC Session)
Sunset Rubdown - I'll Believe in Anything
Spencer Krug - I'll Believe In Anything (Solo acoustic)

The Chalets - live on Other Voices (YouTube)
The Chalets - Gay Holiday ( live on Other Voices)

{Edit} Be sure and read Sweeping the Nation's interview with Gwenno from the Pipettes. Well, it's more of a friendly chat really.

My Brightest Diamond Interview

The first time you listen to a My Brightest Diamond song, you're listening above all to the vocals, soaring like a kite that has broken free, or whispering and trembling as though reading the Brothers Grimm. When someone has a voice like this, they can only sing, and when someone sings like this, you can only listen.
After that, on repeated plays, you'll grow to appreciate every little nuance on each song, like the rolled r's on 'Something of an End', the joyous shriek on 'Golden Star', and every single piece will make sense, building a tiny world that gives rise to these songs, written by Shara Worden, singer, voice coach, and part-time Illinoisemaker. Despite this, she's not too busy to share a few words, for which I am very grateful.

How are you?
On a scale of one to ten, I feel eight and a half. I'm great! A little
sleepy, cause I ran out of caffinated coffee and only had decaf this
morning...

Is the album finished? Are you happy with it?
Yes indeed the album is finished. Hooray! The first sounds were
recorded in October of 2004 and the last sounds almost a year later, but the cumulative studio time was probably less than three weeks. Then it took 7 months for mixing, we didn't finish until February 2006, because Andrew Scheps (the mixer man almighty) was working on the Chili Peppers records, so my record obviously took second priority. But the timing worked out all for the best I think. And yes, I'm happy with it. I worked with everyone I hoped to work with and we had some really special moments together.
Musically, I wanted to investigate the relationship between Drums and Strings and find a balance point between them. They tend to argue a lot, you know. So, I feel like I found certain solutions, not the only ones I could have found, but in the end, I think they argued less and found out that they could be friends sometimes. And that is satisfying work to me.

You come from a very musical family. How much do you think this has influenced the directions you take in your own music?
Yeah, my grandfather played guitar, dad on accordion (he's on the record!) and my mom plays piano, so music was definitely on in the house or being practiced at home all the time. They still are buying records and dad's improving his surround sound system... So I was fortunate that they prioritized my musical education and have supported my choice to pursue music. The musical environment was really open and explorative stylistically, so I think you can hear this collision of many influences, the classical, the french cabaret, the rock all taking a certain role in
this album.

Will your album 'A Thousand Shark's Teeth' be getting a release soon? What can you tell us about it?
The string quartet arrangements for 'Shark's Teeth' were recorded two weeks before I flew to LA to record drums for 'Bring Me The Workhorse'. It was sort of a ridiculous schedule, because I was touring too, but it felt great to be doing that much music! I felt like I had to get that classical feeling out of my system before I could focus on the "rock" aspects of 'Workhorse'. 'Shark's Teeth' is the other side of the coin. The songs are more like art song, than pop tunes, so it's a completely different feeling. Its not finished yet, but should be out hopefully by late summer 2007.

What have you learned from giving voice lessons, and what do you think is the most important part of learning to sing?
The attitude of rock-n-roll is classified generally as anti-establishment, unaffected, self-generated, so when a rock or pop singer comes for lessons, they often find themselves in this dilemma of identity. What is me? What is my voice? How much of the voice can I change with study and technique, and still be me? And while I think if the voice is working, meaning that you can do what you wish to do with voice, and you can do so without becoming hoarse, then I see no reason to study technique. But if that isn't the case, then studying can be this really freeing experience, hard work though it is, and give you the tools to do what you imagine. But changing takes time, consistent work and a flexible mind that is willing to try new things to discover a different outcome. That is a very vulnerable and sometimes scary process. To gain control sometimes you have to let go. But I am firm believer that absolutely anyone can sing if they have the attention for it!

Which songs on 'Bring Me The Workhorse' stand out for you? Which is your favourite to play live?
My personal favorites tend to be on the back half of the record. "Magic Rabbit" was the first song we recorded and I still really like listening to that one a lot, though I rarely play it live. Earl Harvin's drumming on "Workhorse" gets me every time... Live, I'd say "Golden Star" or "Freak Out" are definitely a lot of fun for me. Jumping around is good for your health.

What themes do the lyrics on the album deal with? There's a lot of religious imagery on 'Something of an End', for example.
I think I'm employing the words "heaven and hell come crashing" in that song more as a metaphor for the constructs we have for the universe, how it exists in our minds... It's like your going on your way, thinking the world is one way, and then something dramatic happens in your life, and suddenly you're questioning everything, from the existence of stars in the universe, why you're alive, to why dirt is brown. It's more about that for me, suggesting sort of these bigger ideas and how life altering events change your perspective, and ultimately how do we know we are loved. For themes, there are childhood memories, playful revenge, loss of relationship, desire for freedom, lots of animals - robins, rabbits, dragonflies and horses make appearances!

What was the highlight of your time with the Illinoisemakers? Who else would you like to collaborate with?
Our show in Paris last November was sublime. My Brightest Diamond opened for Sufjan and then I got on my cheerleading uniform for the Illinoismakers, jumping around and having a blast in that hot black room. The audience was so responsive and generous, that it made you want to give all you had to them. Then after the show, as the club was clearing up, there was one spotlight on the audience floor, and this guy in an olive trench coat shows up, mustached and smoking a cigarette with the ash hanging long as a carrot. He gets on stage and starts playing the upright piano, the lightest handed jazz I've ever heard. Then a few of us started dancing, then it turned into rotating scat improvisations between some of the band members and this
French couple, and it ended with me singing "La vie en rose" while he played in the saddest and sweetest way I think that song could ever be expressed. It was magic really. Especially because things were so tense politically between our countries, and to witness the power of music to bring people together as human beings, irrespective of politics, we were there in that room, together, enjoying music and each other and making something beautiful. That to me is transcendence.

I'd love to collaborate with Morten Harket from A-ha. I have always loved his voice. There's this photographer from Vienna, Bernd Preiml, whose work is just gorgeous and I hope we can take pictures one day. I'd also love to work with Jean-Pierre Jeunet... So get this, my husband's second cousin once removed (and I'm not making that up!!!!) is married to this guy. And that guy's half sister is married to Jean-Pierre Jeunet! So I think it's destiny for us to work together.

You played one show in Paris recently, but when will you be touring Europe again?
I am making plans to tour Europe in November for a few weeks, but then doing a more extensive tour there in the spring.

And finally, what book/film/album do you absolutely insist everyone should read/see/hear?
I am presently reading a collection of Vincent Van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo. It's more like a daily reading than like reading a novel. Vincent's way of seeing is so beautiful. He makes me see the world, people, nature in a different way and also encourages me to keep making art one small moment at a time.

Bring Me The Workhorse is out on August 22nd on Asthmatic Kitty.

Magic Rabbit
Disappear
Golden Star

Read Vincent Van Gogh's letters here, annotated and unabridged.
Edith Piaf - La Vie en Rose
A-ha - The Sun Always Shines On TV

A Historical Inevitability, Or Paris Commune+159

I was recently asked to explain why I started this blog. Well, it always seems like a good idea to start a blog, but then you realise you have to update it, and people start reading and it gets complicated... Maybe mp3 blogs are different - people in the mainstream press are writing about them a lot these days, either praising them as a revolutionary new medium, or panicking and declaring that they are a self-jumping bandwagon that runs on hype, with no real taste, bringing us only Sandi Thom, and printing their own ironic t-shirts.
I don't think anyone started out with visions of influence in their heads. I started because I was bored, and had some spare time that I should have spent studying - I didn't expect to get to 200 posts. Though I never really mention it to friends and family, I'm really a little proud of it. Highpoints include interviewing people like The Rakes, Architecture in Helsinki, Owen Pallett, Shara Worden, Richard Reed Parry, The Chalets and Ian Parton - all for or due to the work on this blog.
Chatting with Sufjan in Hamburg was nice, interviewing the Rakes before a show was pretty surreal, as was helping Architecture in Helsinki struggle with German windows so they could catch the first snows of winter in their hands. Talking with Owen Pallett on a bad landline at midnight was not the best way to conduct an interview, but still memorable. I've been commended for weird surrealist prose, attacked for cowing to Zionist conspiracy, patronised by right-wingers, and often left very confused.
Posts I'm particularly proud of include explaining Illinoise, as well as the Arcade Fire one which was at the time the most popular ever (as was this picture which was shown on message boards all over the place.) I'm glad this blog is still a bit different, even if it seems difficult - you probably won't understand the title of this post unless you're a history student or a communist. I know I've never once changed the look of the place either, but that will probably happen soon.
So thanks to everyone who reads this, and has read it in the past, anyone who has ever left a comment (even the mean ones), and to Mike, who linked to me first. And I apologise for all this talk talk talk, it won't happen again.
That was a lie.

To celebrate this 200th post, here are lots of nice mp3s (or Kunsthonig) - some of which I have posted before, some that I haven't. Enjoy!

The Arcade Fire
Winter for a Year
Cold Wind (live)
Sonata
Alligator Mine

Editors
Lights (demo)
Bullets (demo)
Distance (demo)
Munich (demo)

Radiohead
Big Boots (live)
The Thief (Can)
Lift
Scatterbrain (acoustic)
Pop is Dead
Just (acoustic)

The Pipettes
Dirty Mind (Radio 2 session)
Judy (Radio 2 session)
White Christmas
In The Bleak Midwinter
Simon Says
Live videos

The Rakes
22 Grand Job (demo)
Binary Love (demo)
Strasbourg (demo)
T-Bone (demo)
We Are All Animals (live)
Dark Clouds (live)
Just Got Paid But I Can't Get Laid (live)
Acoustic Virgin Session
All Too Human (live on KEXP)
Man With a Job

Muse
Knights of Cydonia (live video)
Live at Shepherd's Bush 28.06.06
Knights of Cydonia (AOL Session)
Crying Shame
Glorious
Eternally Missed

The Chalets
Nightrocker (2fm Session)
Gay Holiday (2fm Session)
Go Go (Don't Go) (2fm Session)

and...

Explosions in the Sky - Rescue EP
JJ72 - Oxygen (demo)
Sufjan - The Great God Bird
Manics - Motown Junk (acoustic)
Lucky Soul - Add Your Light To Mine
Wolf Parade - Wits or a Dagger
The Shout Out Louds - The Comeback (acoustic)
Beirut - The Gulag Orkestar
The Go! Team - Soldier Girl (Polyphonic Spree)
Thom Yorke - Last Flowers Till Hospital (acoustic)
Final Fantasy - If I Were A Carp (live)
Manics - So Why So Sad (Avalanches remix)
Editors - Colour
Petr Novak - Knihovna
My Brightest Diamond - Golden Star
Nick Cave - Disco 2000
The Carrots - Kissing and Telling
The Unicorns - Peach Moon
Bell x1 - Flame
The Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies)

That's it. Be sure to check back tomorrow, or the next day (depending on work) for an interview with My Brightest Diamond. Thanks for reading.

199th Post!!

Wow!

Listen to Sufjan reading his lyrics to 'Come On Feel The Illinoise: part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream' here.
Also, Domino are re-releasing Sebadoh III on July 10th (August 8th in the US), so here's what it sounds/sounded like. Since not everyone knows, Sebadoh were Lou Barlow's old band. Select Magazine liked them.
Sebadoh - The Freed Pig
Sebadoh - Gimme Indie Rock

That is all.