Merry Xmas, Channukah, etc

(originally posted here)

I LIKE DAS RACIST! That is why I am sad. Because I want them to succeed and have a wonderful career that flowers and blooms, but due to the obscure nature of what they do is restricted to a kind of nerdy elitism that is intentionally not for everyone. But guess what! Their new video for "Rainbow In The Dark" is sort of rote! It sort of belies their "Independent Ivy" education! Watch this and you will maybe know what I mean:



Right? Where's the edgy, in-my-face subversion? Where's your tongue, and why is it not in your cheek? This video is a go-nowhere mish-mash of contrasting music video philosophies, all of which are valid in their own way but kind of fall apart when they're crammed together:

1. The anti-rap video

This can be done easily! But you're only kind of doing it, Das Racist. I like, by the way, how you have "I <3 DR" shirts. But still, hip hop videos are 20 years old and have a rich tradition of glorifying excess and if you want to make an anti-rap video, how about one where you make fun of every era of rap? You can start all 80s "hip hop started out in the Bronx, the 17 fundamental elements of hip hop are etc etc," do some horror-core, some 5%-baiting, maybe a quick Canibus impression and come right up into modern day. That would be a pretty simple idea. But OK there's a definite need for a budget on this one. So maybe not.

2. Utilize new (or old) technologies for no discernible reason

Kanye did this! And I was equally confused the first time around. Why am I watching you in geothermal colors? Because it looks cool and makes me think of doing mind-expanding drugs? Excuse me while I go on a journey. To the center. OF MY OWN MIND. I like pretty colors as much as the next not-colorblind guy, but I feel the use of the colorization topographic map camera is just some pointless bells and whistles, all sound and fury, signifying etc.

3. Make an anti-American Apparel ad.

DR, your cohort Ali Wong already did this and, not that she did it "right" or "better" but she did it first (as have many many others). I'm not saying this is a bad idea, it can be very good idea, but I think the key is to make up your mind with which one of these you want to go with. Besides it seems like a transparent attempt to bone some waif models. Which is cool! Bone away! Only young once, sow wild oats etc (also Victor I appreciate your commitment to stripping naked, but do not appreciate seeing your happy trail), you know, bone those dumb-dumb 20-somethings! Godspeed you brown-skinned emperors!

But I guess my big complaint is "what is the point of this video." Is it so I can watch you guys be dumb-dumbs? I will watch that gladly. But if that is what I'm watching I'd prefer your dumb-dumbness to be focused to a laser and shoot through my face. I'd rather not watch hastily strung-together dumb-dumbness that sort of flirts with different ideas but doesn't get into bed with any one of them. Here's an example of a simple idea done well.

Then again, I get it, you're 2 different bands, you go for different things. Is being put in the same paragraph as Vampire Weekend offensive? A slap in the face? Not really any different than drawing parallels with Migmit, so maybe not. Do another video DR, I still have love in my heart for you.

My 2nd installment of mix club. What is mix club? This is mix club.

MIX CLUB DECEMBER 2009

tracks:

intro
electric light orchestra / jungle
lindsey buckingham / I want you
abba / under attack, hey hey helen
wreckless eric / reconnez cherie
dale hawkins / suzy q
beach boys / in my room
the breeders & j mascis / do you love me now jr?
jarvis cocker / leftovers
kasper hauser / phone call to the 14th century
abc / the look of love, pt 1
human league / love action
mr master / a dog in the night (instrumental)
crash course in science / flying turns
outputmessage / bernard's song
eurythmics / let's just close our eyes
lcd soundsystem / too much love
nathan fake / the sky was pink (holden remix)
coldplay / square one (rub n tug remix)
electric light orchestra / the lights go down

Print the cover art!

A good buddy of mine Tamara, who taught herself After Effects and made an amazing Nina Simone video a little while ago, hath retarned (original Sharif-ism) and made a neat little video for "Idols" by Black Gold. Enjoy!

More pictures of records! These are long overdue, from my LA Amoeba trip. As always, I find myself consistently and qualitatively entertained by what the record industry is capable of pressing to vinyl/thinking is a good idea to do so:

Sandra Bernard covering Sylvester? Wonderful, I guess!

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I took a shot of this because Kelly Clarkson is a legitimate genius, but also because apparently Ralphi Rosario did a 10 minute dub version of Walk Away?

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This is one of the reasons Amoeba is so great. Why anyone would think they would get a lot of mileage out of making an Alessi Brothers J-Card is beyond me. These dudes had one amazing song and then the end. "Oh sure, just check the Alessi Bros section in Pop, we have their entire discography available, right before GG Allin!"

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The fact that there is a 12 of this is absurd. I can only imagine what the dance remixes sound like.

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Ah yes, who could possibly ever forget that generation-defining performance of Big Yellow Taxi, that truly watershed moment for us all when Joni Mitchell played her biggest and most well-known hit while Ross chased around a monkey and Rachel flubbed around dowdily and Chandler looked smug? Is this definitive use reversal?

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I never thought I would ever find a Yanni 12, but the universe has a way of saying FUCK YOU PAY ATTENTION:

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Another thing I like about Amoeba is that they accord 7"s the respect they deserve. Such felicitous packaging! I WANT TO BROWSE THESE BOXES:

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"I hit that."
-Bruce Springsteen

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Q: Which one of these bands has a better name?


or

A: They are both equally good.

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Thank you, Amoeba LA, see you next time!

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I bought a latter day ELO album and found a great album cut (white reggae!), and also a latter day Colin Blunstone album and found no great anything. Colin Blunstone from the 80s is basically the opposite of a 311 song: unbeautiful disaster.

Electric Light Orchestra ~ The Lights Go Down

(Originally posted for my job here, with a bunch more photos)

Last night for CMJ I went to see Das Racist, noted joke rap farcical over-educated serious clownfart deadpan funny-funzo’s dumbest of the dumb-dumb absurdist and epicurean drunk willfully obtuse high-and-low trash fringe artists. It was the most idiotic and enjoyable show of CMJ! Constantly making meta self-aware comments like forcing a crowd of white people to chant “WHITE PEEOPPPLLLE” can either be annoying or delightful, depending on how clever you fancy yourself. Das Racist fancies itself to be clever. In fact, they are to a large extent, but not always. This is of course the curse of the Wesleyan grad.

To Das Racist, the Wesleyan leash must seem suffocating. Many have already balked at the preponderance of calling Wesleyan an “art college” (it is neither an art school nor a college), but at the same time the assocation with MiGMiT sure hasn’t hurt group’s press any, nor has having the wonderful but clearly one-note joke name Das Racist for a duo comprised of a Spanish guy and Desi guy. And as a fellow Wesleyanite myself (go Cards/fight till the end when might and right etc), I can appreciate how the blending of trash culture with privileged over-education can yield sublime results. It is in fact the very heart of Wesleyan.

Unfortunately if you can’t hear the lyrics, very little of this translates into a live show. Amidst the deafening and endless overuse of airhorns (irony?) and sending a micstand crowd surfing (irony!), Victor Vazquez and Himanshu Suri command the stage with a drunken urgency that is somehow both feral and bored. Throughout all of this, they are stumbling and bumbling their way through their very catchy and bon mot-laden anti-raps, rife with references to the Modern Lovers, Cypress Hill, Speedy Gonzalez, and [insert name of philosopher/playwright/civil rights crusader here].

Songs are started and aborted and started again by a DJ who seems as unnecessary as the third MC and various other yabbos who also joined the duo throughout the set. With no structure, the performance was a shitshow of yelling the same words at the same time, dance breaks, and willfully surreal audience baiting. The conclusion of the show, during which Das Racist played Alphaville’s “Forever Young” (the maudlin undancey version) and WWF wrestler dance-walked their way off stage, is reminiscent of the way the Notorious MSG ended their equally ridiculous sets by tearing off their tracksuits and flexing suggestively over shrill dog and pony show music.

The question for Das Racist then becomes whether or not they can surpass the gift/curse of their viral deconstruction online views-accumulator “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.”

As an audience member I can honestly say there was a moment of meaningless anxiety as to whether they would even perform it. The “will they? won’t they?” aspect seemed to me more leaning towards the latter, as I’m sure Das Racist has no desire fall down Superdrag’s “Who Sucked Out The Feeeeeeeeling” rabbit hole of playing a novelty well past its prime (File under: They Might Be Giants, Andrew Dice Clay).

More importantly, how do you expand on a joke that is derived from a YouTube clip whose punchline you get in the first 20 seconds, which has already been somehow expanded into a 3 minute song? Obviously you cannot. Performing Taco Bell live would have been useless and deflating, and ultimately would have robbed the original video of its charm. In the original YouTube version, Taco Bell’s strength lies in repetition rendering the eponymous phrase absurd, and repeating repeating repeating it until the absurd becomes transcendent, which you don’t realize until you’re in the middle of listening to it for the first time. In the live show, we realize how little the lyrics matter — the same ripostes and excessive verbiage that characterize Das Racist’s other songs and make you realize they are not in fact dumb-dumbs are the same that are conspicuously absent in Taco Bell. That is to say, lyrics don’t matter until they do.

When Taco Bell gratifyingly, inevitably begins its Armageddon synth opening, the new live lyrics evolve thusly:

I’m at the Pizza Hut. I’m at the Taco Bell. I’m at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. (repeat 3x so we’re all on the same page)

I’m at the Baskin Robbins. I’m at the Dunkin Donuts. I’m at the combination Baskin Robbins Dunkin Donuts.

I’m at the Fedex Store. I’m at the Kinko’s Store. I’m at the combination Fedex store and Kinko’s store.

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the combination best of times and worst of times.

The imaginary leap from chain stores to Dickens was, again, transcendent. Achieving a new layer of revelatory irony from an already preposterous premise made all the other bush league antics of the Das Racist show fleetingly irrelevant, because it succeeded in momentarily justifying the group’s cleverness in a way that had been hitherto lacking. The group freed itself from its own chains using its own rules: lyrics matter until they don’t matter, and when words don’t matter, you can say whatever you want:

I’m at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. I’m at the combination Baskin Robbins Dunkin Donuts. I’m at the combination combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell and combination Baskin Robbins Dunkin Donuts.

I was mildly impressed. I was consistently entertained. I was the combination mildly impressed and consistently entertained.

It was a good review. It was a bad review. It was a combination good review and bad review.

Hi readers!

I'm writing to let you know that I love you all very much and that I've been dumb busy. I didn't even get to go to the WFMU record fair today, sad emoticon. I've got a bunch of pictures and vinyl burns and cranky old man ramblings, but literally no time to put any of them up. I even have an extensive live review of the Das Racist show from CMJ!

Until my life slows down somewhat, here's a song I've been enjoying a great deal.

Outputmessage ~ Bernard's Song (mp3)

Finally found you! All that remains now is an original US pressing of Pinkerton.

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I just moved apartments and found all this stuff that I've been keeping because I'm a pack rat. I'm trying to stop hoarding shit (I only last year and after great reluctance threw away my Simpsons VHS tapes that I made all through high school). One thing I'm sad to see go is this Panasonic walkman, which in my estimation is the best walkman I ever had. It only used 1 battery for Christ sake!

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And of course, so long to you, random tapes that I've bought and listened to maybe twice!

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What's that cassette? You are lonely because you're the only obsolete technology around? Well why didn't you speak up earlier? Say hello to Mini-Discs! In case you haven't heard, they are the wave of the future!

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This is what all my records look like when they're in boxes:

I went to the Brooklyn Record Riot this weekend, it seemed like it was extremely poorly attended. All the record guys were like "it says the records are 3 for $5... but I'm willing to go down!" The recession hits us all I guess. Here's what I bought, because everyone likes looking at pictures of records (this is in fact true):

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I have not been blogging bc I have been working a lot at work. I should post a link to Pat Lundy's "Work Song" or "I Got Work To Do" by Vanessa Williams (MAW remix with Black Sheep!) but instead I'm going to put up Punch Em In The Dick. I don't know whether this is a joke or not but I'm assuming it must be (the fact that they are from Portland Oregon notwithstanding -- after all this is the same wonderful place that gave us HannaH's Field)



*via Magic Jesus