STEAMED, GRILLED AND MASHED BY BEETLE
Friday, November 13, 2009
AUDIO DECONSTRUCTION
DECONstructed BY ANALOG
Starting with an almost krautrock groove which pushes and pulls between staccato guitar blasts, Embryonic, the new album from The Flaming Lips, is unlike anything most have heard before from the band. Those accustomed to the Lip's quirky yet undeniably catchy pop numbers such as "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" and mega-hit "Do You Realize" will find little to relate to. Embryonic is the most difficult and rewarding album that The Flaming Lips have released in a decade. Not since before The Soft Bulletin (1999) has the band sounded so willing to break their own routines and stretch out into unknown territory.
Paranoid, damaged and relentlessly experimental, Embryonic is a mammoth 18 tracks and thankfully, in true Lips form, the moments where the experimentation becomes a barrier are in short supply. The band has always treaded a fine line between pop and chaos and through all the dissonance and noise there are still moments of perfect beauty. The album is a sprawling acid-rock epic which seems to have more in common with the early days of Pink Floyd than anything in the Lips own catalogue and the music seems tailor-made to be performed live, with the deadly grooves timed perfectly to some psychedelic laser light-show.
There will be many who find this record hard to handle but fear not. Sure there are 18 noise filled tracks with Wayne Coyne's trademark croon pushed off of the center. Sure there is loads of atonal (re: slightly aggravating) guitar work and squelchy synthesizers. But it's a new Flaming Lips record and for anyone who has heard their previous work, you know that's a great thing.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
DISMANTLING THE BAND
MATT GOOD (NOT GREAT) CAUSES A SNORE; MOTHER MOTHER STEALS THE SHOW
REVIEWED BY LACKlustre
Mother Mother blew Matt Good out of the waaaater. No questions asked, haaands down. They have got to be one of the tightest, melodic bands that I have ever seen grace any stage. Now, I have listened to Mother Mother since “Touch Up” came out, but my love affair only truly started at their “O My Heart” album release in November 2008. My boyfriend and I have been to every live performance of theirs (in the lower mainland) since then. So, when we saw that Mother Mother was opening for Matt Good, we leapt on the opportunity to go to the show. Boyfriend is a Matt Good Fan.. I, don’t know a lot about him but could most def appreciate his musical career.
Mother Mother hit the stage at about 7:30 pm, an hour before Mr.Good was expected to start. They played an incredibly sharp 40 minute set which included a ton of tracks off of “O My Heart” including: Ghosting (the opener of the set), Hayloft, O My Heart, Body of Years, Wrecking Ball, Arms Tonite, and Body. They also gave us the delightful treat of hearing two songs that could be on an… UPCOMING ALBUM?! DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN! They played so wickedly tight that they sounded like the album, if not more dynamic. Each member knew their parts flawlessly and exceptional musicianship was displayed.
They ended their set on a super high note with, title track, O My Heart. The energy in The Centre was tangible; people who didn’t know Mother Mother walking in, left as fans. Then… Matt Good hit the stage… leading off with THREE slow tracks off of his new album, Vancouver Vancouver
It bothers me that after a long and prosperous career in the music industry, Matt Good still doesn’t understand that you can’t start a set with crap! You CANNOT follow a high energy act with slow, doom and gloom tunes that put people to sleep. That is begging for a bad review.
If you don’t know Mother Mother’s music, or haven’t seen them live… it is something that you have to do. They are the epitome of what music should be and how it should be performed live. Mad props to one of the best exports that Canada
And hey, Matt, if you’re out there… SNORE.
LITERARY CONCUSSION
reVIEwed by theRealist
I read a shitload of books. Like seriously. I have a bookcase in my room that is stocked with everything from Nietzsche and Sartre to Roberto Bolaño and Kurt Vonnegut to Bret Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk, hell I even have books like, “The Zombie Survival Guide,” or the Gears of War book, which I still haven’t willed myself to read. What I’m trying to say is that I’m always reading and I’m always open to read something new.
So on to the topic of this post. Before I started reading Jeff Lindsay’s, “Dexter,” series I found the TV show online. I was addicted instantly and went crazy over the series. Then I found the whole thing stemmed from a book, which made me even happier. I ran out, bought the first two books (they were the only two out at the time, there are now four) and basically finished the first season of the TV show then moved on to read the first book. Needless to say the book was very different.
First of all, Jeff Lindsay is not one of the greatest writers out there. His voice is simple and sounds forced sometimes, which totally throws off the character for me. But I persevered and actually liked some of the differences that the book had to the TV show. I won’t give anything away just in case people are watching/reading any of this but there are a fair amount of differences.
So this continued for the first two books and then the third book came out alongside the third season. Suddenly, Jeff Lindsay had more and more similarities to the TV show, but he still kept it different (he had to, he’d done so many things different he couldn’t, well frankly, bring people back from the dead and so on). The TV show started to win huge points with me, first off because Michael C. Hall owns the role of Dexter and all the characters around him are amazing. The writers for the TV show are flat out, much better at their jobs than Jeff Lindsay is. I mean the storyline on the TV show is so capturing, so enthralling from the first episode to the season finale. There are pieces of the book that I wish were in the TV show, but I’m assuming the fact that we are sympathizing with a serial killer already, pushing the envelope with some racier subjects may be too much, even for Showtime.
But here’s my beef. I just finished reading the latest book (“Dexter by Design”) and I was thoroughly pissed off by the end. First of all, the character isn’t Dexter at all. He’s a blubbering idiot who kills one person throughout the whole book, and the dude ends up being innocent. The whole book is a cat and mouse race that is so utterly repetitive you want to just start skipping chapters. I’m going to throw out a little spoiler here, and say that in the TV show Dexter has a child with his wife Rita. In the fourth book he has just gotten married.
First of all, Jeff Lindsay is not one of the greatest writers out there. His voice is simple and sounds forced sometimes, which totally throws off the character for me. But I persevered and actually liked some of the differences that the book had to the TV show. I won’t give anything away just in case people are watching/reading any of this but there are a fair amount of differences.
So this continued for the first two books and then the third book came out alongside the third season. Suddenly, Jeff Lindsay had more and more similarities to the TV show, but he still kept it different (he had to, he’d done so many things different he couldn’t, well frankly, bring people back from the dead and so on). The TV show started to win huge points with me, first off because Michael C. Hall owns the role of Dexter and all the characters around him are amazing. The writers for the TV show are flat out, much better at their jobs than Jeff Lindsay is. I mean the storyline on the TV show is so capturing, so enthralling from the first episode to the season finale. There are pieces of the book that I wish were in the TV show, but I’m assuming the fact that we are sympathizing with a serial killer already, pushing the envelope with some racier subjects may be too much, even for Showtime.
But here’s my beef. I just finished reading the latest book (“Dexter by Design”) and I was thoroughly pissed off by the end. First of all, the character isn’t Dexter at all. He’s a blubbering idiot who kills one person throughout the whole book, and the dude ends up being innocent. The whole book is a cat and mouse race that is so utterly repetitive you want to just start skipping chapters. I’m going to throw out a little spoiler here, and say that in the TV show Dexter has a child with his wife Rita. In the fourth book he has just gotten married.
Jeff Lindsay actually started writing FROM the TV show. He literally STOLE things the TV writers had already done, and used them in the book, almost verbatim. Like what the fuck man? Seriously? The book ends in a cliffhanger just like all the others, with Rita telling Dexter she’s pregnant. So now, officially, the book is behind the TV show, giving Mr. Shitty Writer the opportunity to just plagiarize the seasons as they are written by far more talented people.
Frankly, I am pissed off. It’s offensive to the whole community of literature. If this is his plan of action, he needs to stop writing books, and just let the TV show go on, but of course he won’t. Why just collect royalty from the TV show when you can write books that people will read? Because let’s face it, people WILL read them. Even I will keep reading them, which is pathetic and pisses me off to say, but it’s only because I need filler before the next season is aired.
Jeff Lindsay shouldn’t be allowed to publish books anymore. He came up with an extremely impressive idea, and he’s now spending his time driving it into the ground.
Monday, November 9, 2009
SOCIAL COMBUSTION
RIHANNA: THE FORCED MEDIA WHORE
POSTED BY LACKLUSTRE
Does anyone else find it funny that rihanna finally turns to the media about the chris brown debocal not three weeks before her brand new album drops? Hmm… so let’s think here. Rihanna stays completely silent about the whole thing… hides out of the limelight… decides to record and album… then POOF becomes a media whore spitfire? Talk about a strategy! That girl has a smart (but pathetic) team behind her. They are capitalizing on something that happened a year ago to make her the centre of attention right before her new album hits the streets? I think that what happened was that they saw that her single was not being overly well received and knew that they needed to beef up her profile in order to get (ANY) hype around “Rated R”’s release on November 23rd. This will be riri’s first studio album since 2007’s “Good Girl Gone Bad”. Hmmm, it bothers me that they are really putting pressure on her to talk about her experience with C-brown the douchebag in order to sell albums. She has made it very, very clear that she wants nothing to do with the media on this matter… yet here she is. I think it is very unfortunate. For her sake, I hope it works. Otherwise, reliving this over, and over, and over again would all be for nothing. (Get Rihanna’s album, “Rated R” on November 23rd.)
Sunday, November 8, 2009
SOCIAL COMBUSTION
THOUGHTFULLY PRODUCED BY ANALOG
A few weeks ago I was having a discussion with a friend of mine who is professional musician. We played in a relentlessly obtuse metal band together and we still share a studio space so our paths occasionally cross when I'm working on mixing and he stops by to pickup or drop-off some of his gear. Usually these impromptu discourses focus on the mundane and the filthy, supplemented by a healthy dose of dick and fart jokes, but this time the conversation worked its way onto the topic of music and specifically, a listeners tangible connection to music.
Pardon you ask? WTF you ask? Let me explain.
We live in a digital world where the entire human history is just a wiki-click away. In this shrinking world, Marshall McLuhan's theories of the Global Village have most certainly come true. Knowledge is instant. Want to know the GDP of Romania ($264B)? Done. How about the winner of Best Actress at the 1956 Oscars (Ingrid Bergman)? No problem. The same goes for music. The listener can access music from across the globe with almost no effort but the ease at which information is transmitted is neither a good or bad thing. It simply is the world we live in. I have to wonder though...what effect does this have on the music listener?
In the past our association to music was always with the physical. Performances, the vinyl LP, the cassette tape, the compact disc. These were all things we could see and touch. Music fans built their reputation on the ferocity of their collections rather than the size of their hard drives. One could spend hours in a record store, combing the shelves for import Radiohead singles or discovering bargain bin treasures like Terry Jacks. But the MP3 made this experience obsolete. Now one can stroll the aisles of a virtually endless record store, one with all the best and most obscure music, then instantly download that music. It seems all so simple...but is it also destructive? The hunt is over in minutes and instant gratification is achieved. But that gratification is neither satisfying or long lasting and soon, for good or ill, that same person is back at virtual checkout with the newest single from yet another band from Brooklyn.
Many people see music as disposable nowadays and with both major and independent artists giving away their music for free the factual consensus seems to be growing. But why? With more access to cross genre creativity than ever before listeners still feel disassociated enough to drop their favorite new band as soon as their next record comes out. Why? Downloading requires no effort. No leaving the house. No searching through dusty shelves of music. No judging glances at your Ace of Base selection from the snobby store clerk (fuck yeah I know all the words to "The Sign"). The download eliminated some of the very things that make listeners connect with an artist. The download killed the hunt for the album none of your friends had. The one you could champion and hold like a badge of honor. That search made listeners into fans and fans buy records like the dickens.
Digital music is not going away. iTunes is the largest music retailer in the world yet even as CD sales are in exponential decline, vinyl sales are on the rise. In a world filled with endless choice and crystal clear compressed audio files, music listeners are still rabid for crusty old vinyl. How can this be? You might expect me to go on about how vinyl sounds better (it does) and how the experience of a spinning turntable triggers intense childhood nostalgia (it does), but that isn't why I think vinyl is still so popular. It all comes down to the experience of listening. Not jogging with your iPod on shuffle. Not playing video games with music running in the background. Not driving a car with a mix-disc in the dash. I mean sitting in a room with a beefy set of speakers, cranking the volume and actually listening. You can't carry a record player around with you. You can't set it to shuffle. And you certainly can't install one in your car. These limitations force the listener to pay attention instead of turning artwork into musak.
My turntable is a simple, suitcase sized number with speakers in the side. I bought it for $150 on Ebay. I don't use it a ton since the majority of my music is on CD and I'm not going to act like I've never downloaded a song before. But when I put John Lennon's Double Fantasy on the platter, the needle slips into that familiar groove and my two year old daughter starts dancing to "Yoko" it not only makes me immensely happy, it makes me confident that someday the music fans of this world will decide to repent for their sins of neglect by grabbing a cup of tea, putting all their thoughts into a comfortable chair and really, REALLY listening.
SOCIAL COMBUSTION
COMBUSTED BY SCumBAG
For those of you who know me, you know that I hate U2. I hate U2 more than anything in the world. I have openly advocated the public stoning of Bono and his merry band of overrated and untalented musicians ever since I ever heard the first note of his accursed wailing enter my earlobes. Since I started writing for howikilledthescene.com, I have been patiently waiting for the day where U2 would slip up, and I would have an opportunity to ravage them verbally over the internet. Now that day has come, and I couldn’t be happier. Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing yet another hypocritical and useless gesture from Bono and U2. On Thursday, November 11, U2 played a “free” MTV-produced concert in Berlin. All went well, except for that free part. 10,000 tickets were distributed online and those who didn’t get a chance to get their hands on one of them were subject to a 6 ft tall gate with white covering blocking the view. Good job, U2, you shit all over your fans and reputation again.
In a statement released by the pompous and utterly irrelevant MTV, they went on to say something along the lines of the fence being something to give the 10,000 people who were actually admitted entry to the debacle a safe and confined environment. Except that totally defeats the purpose of putting on a free show, you dolts. Now while it pains me to think that more than 10,000 people in this world actually enjoy U2, it pains me even more to come to the realization that these fans are not only spoonfed shitty quality music every few years, but they can turn a blind eye to Bono, U2 and their self-righteous behavior. That fence wasn’t to create a safe and confined environment, it was so you would go home and watch U2 on TV and boost MTV’s ratings so they had more money to pay U2, who was probably gouging them for an undeserved 10 million dollars for the lackluster 4 song, let me repeat that, 4 SONG SETLIST that they managed to squeeze out for “free” in between bathing in 100 dollar bills and pretending to love African children. Bono doesn’t love Africa OR his fans, Bono loves mansions and fake breasted women, just like the rest of the people who start out playing in a band for the sake of getting rich. Not that I would object to having those things in large quantity, because I wouldn’t, but I would never take advantage of a loyal fanbase to do so. It’s called musical integrity, something U2 hasn’t showed signs of for the better part of 2 decades.
The whole “free concert” thing has been done before, albeit by better standards in this. Ozzy Osbourne went out and did free Ozzfest dates a few years back, but even then, I’m pretty sure they also had a limited number of tickets and I’m sure that a bottle of water would have cost your soul, firstborn, and an organ transplant to one of the old and dying fat-cats in the head office of whatever record label managed to let Ozzy go through with the idea, but still, I doubt they constructed a big wall to screw over the rest of the Ozzy loving populace who didn’t get a chance to go. Even if they did, Ozzy still rules and hasn’t been a big consistent douchebag like Bono over the years. You know what? I can’t wait until everyone finally figures out that U2 were never any good, Bono will always not care about the fans, and African children are still going to live in shitty conditions in a third world country, despite what Bono thinks about it all changing in the purchasing their new DVD (which would probably cost $200 dollars, and send a free complimentary can of soup overseas everytime you realize that you’ve been tricked that U2 are still money-grubbing dumbasses).
While I happen to be writing about how much I hate this band and everything they stand for, I’d like to point out that appearing in iPod and Blackberry commercials couldn’t prove my point any harder than I’m trying to do now. U2 definitely did NOT need to appear in those commercials to put food on the table. U2 needed to appear in those commercials to suck those corporations dry. Speaking of which, I just happened to throw out my iPod and smash my Blackberry all over the cement after I saw those commercials…I’m just kidding, I never had a Blackberry, but be sure I would have smashed had I owned one at the time. In other news, Bono decided to shave off his pseudo-aging hippy grease mullet and go for a more reserved pseudo-hippy shaved head new era of douchebaggery look. Look, he still wears the same dumbass glasses and same ridiculous jackets. Nothing’s changed, except for how much richer that shitty band is. I swear to god, there isn’t a bigger abomination in the world as having U2 in the Rock Hall of Fame. It’s insulting, and quite frankly, nausea inducing.
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