Beginning of a short story
I jolted forward with unabashed hurry. On the front it's better if no one thinks you're confused. Through the slots adorned with bloated numbers and discounted Christmas book collections, I wove a disjointed and prudently disorienting tread. Fitted in my most inconspicuous clothing, I was determined to not be noticed or followed. It's important. I knew they were watching.
The aisles became a mounting hazy recapitulation of monophonic signs, arrows, and colored binds, with every choreographed careen. Dully, I thought about the time this must have taken. What force had orchestrated this dizzying dialectic of literature and kitschy illustrated calendars. The deliberateness of it all made me feel ill.
Feeling short of breath, my attention focused on a unseemly caricature of a woman, rooted Indian style in my otherwise empty row. Fiction/Literature(B). With confident diligence she thumbed each selection with her left hand. Her right hand she alternated between gently pushing her blonde bangs away from her eyes, and coyly resting near the precipice of her angular knee. Connecting with her target, the wide eyed terror chose a title: Ham on Rye.
“Oh!” She gasped with unadulterated glee.
I quickly averted my attention to the shelves. I tried not to catch her eye as she clasped at each page with hurried and clumsy exuberance. Her phone rang. It was an obnoxious cellular re imagining of Lennon's Imagine. She let it ring for a while, zealously taking in the sound of her ring tone. Or she was making sure that I was listening.
“Yeah, I'm at the bookstore” Her shrill pips rang out. She was proud.
“Oh my god, I'm totally reading this book by some guy this boy I met at a record store really loves. His name is Boukowski. I think he's really old, like from the sixties or something.”
As the creature continued her conversation, I became aware of the noise she was making. I had to get away. Needing to maintain caution, I concluded that slowly backing away and ever eyeballing the titles in Fiction/Literature(B) may help me to leave without interaction.
As I retreated I felt a soft collision of another person standing behind me. I was immediately blinded by the glint from the white teeth of the bookstore helper. His hungry contortion of a mouth bore every tooth and reflected in his name tag. He caught me looking
“I know I know!” He knowingly chided
In my horror I had the nerve to ask.
“What?”
“Well you don't have to be so rude”
His name was Dick.
Dick was round. He wore his baggy cargo jeans at the center of his belly. The taut pressure from his belt formed a flesh valley that orbited his person. Dick had a greasy shirt, but his Barnes and Noble name tag flashed brilliantly against the hunter green background. Dick was dangerous.
“Can I help you find anything?”
I violently pressed against my keys, and counted to ten as my throbbing arm responded to the fleeting pressure warming my hands. Searching for the right words to say, I attempted a smile at Dick. Dick raised an understanding eyebrow and calmly placed both hands on the fat of his rump. He then slightly bent his lower back and loudly groaned as two pops echoed from his center.
“Don't read much?”
“What?”
“New reader? I get them here a lot. They look and look and never quite find what they're looking for. Do you know what you're looking for?”
“I...”
“Excuse me!”
The creature with the Bukowski found us.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The Future - Combination Pizza Hut & Taco Bell
The voice of a generation.
Das Racist - Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell(Wallpaper Remix
Hype - rventilate #1: The Drums
This is a recurring section where I will decide the fate of new-ish music becoming desperately close to being over hyped before they've earned their keep.
Example:
Vampire Weekend = succeed
MGMT = fail
This is the litmus test of whether this band is cool enough to like.
I'm being serious.
NME names The Drums New York's coolest new band!
The kiss of death!? Nothing cool can be so well received by such a douchey publication...right?
With quotes like:
"We only write about two feelings: one is the first day of summer when you and all of your friends are standing on the edge of a cliff watching the sun set and being overcome with all of your hopes and dreams at once. The other is when you're walking alone in the rain and realize you will be alone forever."
It seems easy to cast aside The Drums as another Brooklyn 1950's sappy pop apologist. In fact, The Drums didn't even start in Brooklyn. They moved there from Florida because they weren't getting enough opportunities.
And we've seen this juxtaposition of pure joy and angst bundled together with the right amount of sarcasm before. Remember that little album from a lesser known group called Girls?
However...tracks like "Down by the Water", "Submarine", and "I Wanna Go Surfing" reveal varied influences and subtle elements ranging from 80 New Wave synth, modern shoe gaze, and of course 1950's pop respectively.
While The Drums are kind of late to the party, they don't sound like they're ripping off last years rip offs. These are new permutations of new rip offs.
The interesting thing about waves is that their music is more complex than their descriptions of their music, which is kind of rare.
So The Drums are a succeed. I decree that it is ok to enjoy this band. Hype Away!
Damn!
Down By The Water
In Memory of Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr.
As most know, the artist known as Jay Reatard has passed away at the age of 29. Thank you for peaking my interest in the Memphis music scene, and having the best Twitter account of 2009. You will be missed.
Jay Reatard - Aint Gonna Save Me
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Best Albums of 2009 (short reviews)
1. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
Complex art pop without addled noodling. Every careen has a purpose.
2. The xx - The xx
Minimalist R&B inspired sexy pop songs. In every genre of art, utilizing absence seems to inspire.
3. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Digestible dance rock with synth heavy EPIC hooks.
4. Flaming Lips - Embryonic
Experimental electronic and fucking awesome. The punk rockers are taking their acid again.
5. Girls - Album
Lovely pop songs. It never hurts to capture angst.
6. Neon Indians - Psychic Chasms
Lo-fi glo-fi shoegaze swirl? Not sure what the bloggers are calling this music now, but it's noisy experimental and psychedelic pop music. It's also very good.
7. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
I cannot say anything about this album which has not already been said. I liked it alot, I did not like it as much as you.
8. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
wait...noise band does house music? Yes. Yes. Yes.
9. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Beautiful.
10. Sunn O))) - Monolith and Dimensions
A friend admonished me when I tried to label this band. I agree. I like it though.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Short Interview with L.A. noise artists - HEALTH
Nashville is a quickly growing alternative rock scene, expanding beyond the traditional country and blues forms it is known for. Nationally known alternative acts such as Ghostland Observatory, Ben Kweller, and The Kings of Leon have scheduled fall dates in Nashville. Less than an hour away from Bowling Green, Nashville can offer a live taste of the national alternative music scene. This fall on October 31 at the Sommet Center, Nine Inch Nails will perform with L.A. noise rock band Health.
Health is a four person band comprised of Benjamin Jared Miller, Jake Duzsik, John Famiglietti, and Jupiter Keyes. Miller plays the drums. Duzsik sings and plays guitar and zoothorn. Keyes plays guitar, percussion, zoothorn and keyboards. Famiglietti play bass, zoothorn, and electronic percussion. The zoothorn, which is a permutation of microphone, and guitar pedal is a trademark of Health because it gives their music the abrasive noise rock sound they are known for.
With the success of their self-titled LP recorded at the Los Angelos hipster hotspot, The Smell, Health planned to halt their early 2008 touring and begin work on their follow up album. However, Trent Reznor — sole official member of the Nine Inch Nails act — recruited the Health band to support Nine Inch Nails as a part of their national tour. Notorious for impromptu shows, Health put their recording ambitions on hold and created a fall/winter tour list that includes concert dates with Of Montreal, Angel Deradoorian of Dirty Projectors, and Nine Inch Nails.
Chad Meadows from Rise Over Run had the opportunity to ask Health a few questions about their music and concert with Nine Inch Nails.
Rise Over Run: Not too many noise rock bands (or any bands for that matter) are so willing to push their music to be remixed by other groups and DJs. Why do you enjoy remixes so much? What makes your music so palatable to good remix content?
John Famiglietti: In this decade remixes have become an artform, and less and less kids listen to rock music; its a very easy way to be relevant, and if yr working with people you admire an exciting way to make some great music you wouldn’t normally make. I think the element that makes us translate to remixes well is our (Jake’s) vocal style, which contains very little flair, which can translate to dance music without sounding like a joke, which is what usually happens when a hard rock band is remixed. But most importantly its the remixer, all the remixers we picked because we knew that hatever you gave them it would be gold and they’d serve their artistic desires above serving the source material.
ROR: You have certainly developed a unique sound, how has your music changed since you began as a group?
JF: When we began, we did not have a unique sound at all, which we hated ourselves for. We immediately began experimenting to try and do something different it became the sound we have now.
ROR: What motivates your music? or Where do you find inspiration?
JF: The overwhelming desire to make good music. We want to make a great album, and deliver a great live show. Our dream is to be “that” band for “that” kid, that they were actually around for during the heyday, there’s not very many bands today you can define your lifestyle by. Our main inspiration is other music, good and bad.
ROR: How much is your live act a part of experiencing your band?
JF: We want the records to stand on their own, but I think most people understand the sounds and the intent of the music much better after seeing it live. But as music goes nothing is better than the real thing live.
ROR: Will there be any live collaboration with Nine Inch Nails at the concerts that you play together?
JF: Absolutely not, but their light guy is gonna do lights for us, which is exciting cuz its the coolest lighting rig I’ve ever seen in my life.
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