Music Notes: August 2014
The Back-to-school Edition
1. The Bats – Volume 1
Oh, you really need to hear this. Jangly psych-pop from New Zealand. Eight albums in and they are still fantastic. This compl collects the first two albums Daddy’s Highway and The Law of Things (+ extras), plus another CD of EPs and rarities. It will make your ears happy.
2. The Boomtown Rats – A Tonic for the Troops
After picking up their first album, it was only a matter of time before I got this one too. If the debut was punk influenced R & B, this one was pure new wave. New wave that despite the cheery, catchy tunes, contained songs about suicide, Hitler, euthanasia and alienation. I was surprised I still knew all of the worlds.
3. Mirel Wagner – When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day
Sparse, atmospheric sounds of Wagner’s second disc. Not immediate, but repeated plays reveal the depth and intimacy of the record. Playing Toronto at the Drake in November. I have my ticket.
4. Stephen Duncombe and Maxwell Tremblay (eds.) White Riot: Punk Rock and the politics of Race
Came across this volume in a second-hand book store. Fairly interesting collection of stuff on questions of race within punk. As well as texts and interviews by participants, the book includes work by Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs, and Dick Hebdige. Thought provoking to say the least.
5. Massive Attack – The Best of Massive Attack
Why get compilations when you already have most of the songs? Ah, well, you see this one has a nice bonus disc with harder to find stuff and a DVD of all the videos. A cash-in to part the unwary from their hard-earned cash? Most likely, but it still sounds lovely.
6. Roxy Music – Roxy Music
Now, I grew up in the UK in the seventies so I knew the hits, but I’d never really sat down and listened to an entire Roxy Music album, especially the ones before it became Bryan Ferry’s back-up band. This may be the most successful pairing of glam and art school sounds ever. A look back and a look ahead. It’s no wonder the punks loved their early work.
7. 5 Seconds of Summer – 5 Seconds of Summer
My daughter was a huge One direction fan…until she wasn’t. From obsession, she quietly stopped talking about the band. And then, a month or so ago, a new band began to pepper her conversation: 5 Seconds of Summer. It’s a boy band, true, but it’s one where the band play guitars and write their own songs. It’s still too poppy for me (and the better songs sound like Blink 182 – no, I don’t like them either), but it’s a step in the right direction. And the less said about Calum Hood’s penis the better.
8. Darling Violetta – “The Sanctuary”
Re-watched the final season of Angel recently (the deaths of Fred and Wesley still make me cry). Still love the opening music by Darling Violetta. They no longer seem to have a web page and “their” Facebook page is empty. Alas.
9. Half Japanese – Greatest Hits
Oh and you should really find this one too. “Firecracker,” which opens this 2-CD set was my favourite song of the summer. This beast which dates to the 90s features tracks from most Half Japanese recordings and a few new songs (including a quite wonderful version of Primal Scream’s “Move on Up”). Jad Fair is playing in Toronto next Saturday.
10. The Clean – Anthology
Ooh, another of those New Zealand pop bands. In fact, Robert Scott of the Bats is the Clean. I don’t want to waste too much time talking about this because it’s time you could be suing to get these songs and listen to them. Like the Bats, simply outstanding.
Dogs and Work
Where does the expression work like a dog come from?
I’ve had a little bit of a break from work, but am heading back in a couple of days. Whenever I move from not working to working, that old Smiths refrain jangles through my head:
I was looking for a job and then I found a job
and Heaven knows I’m miserable now
As fate would have it, I was browsing though a volume called Guy Debord and the Situationist International, a collection of texts and articles from an expanded issue of October magazine. Among the pieces is a 1983 interview with Henri Lefebvre. In the interview, Lefebvre discusses the notion of work, and refers to City, a 1950s science fiction collection by Cliff Simak:
[in the book] work is performed by robots. Humans can’t stand the situation; they die because they are so used to working. They die, and the dogs that are left take advantage of the situation. The robots work for them, feed them, and so forth. And the dogs are perfectly happy because they aren’t deformed by the work habit.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t die if I didn’t have a job, but I do like the notion that dogs would have a seamless transition. Based on my own observations of my dog, I think he’d be pretty happy. Something for us then.
Being a Dad (part 8)
They sure grow up fast. My 14-year-old daughter is starting high school next week and went to a grade 9 orientation this morning. I drove her there.
Years ago, on her first day of daycare, I dropped her off there too. As she realized I was leaving, she burst into tears, crying, “Don’t leave me daddy.” I was crying in the car as I went to work.
Today wasn’t quite so traumatic, but both of us had tears in our eyes. When I tried to explain this to my son later, he looked at me as if I were crazy. He’s right, parents are crazy. How can we not be?
On Aufhebengate and TPTG’s Counter Inquiry
In 2011, a scandal broke out in the circles I travel in. A member of the collective which publishes the very interesting journal Aufheben had signed his name to a report for the police on crowd control. At the time, the group I’m with, published its statement on the matter. Since then, we have not changed our opinion on Aufheben, but we have revised our position regarding a proposal by the TPTG group which broke the scandal. Here is the statement:
In 2011, the Greek communist group TPTG publicized the fact that a member of the collective which publishes the journal Aufheben , J.D., was also a signature on articles on crowd control which were commissioned by the police. This class-collaborationist act was the subject of much heated discussion within the milieu.
TPTG for its part also proposed a “proletarian counter-inquiry.” In November 2011, we published a short article on our blog entitled “On Aufhebengate” which condemned the actions of J.D., but also rejected TPTG’s proposal for a commission into such actions.
Since we published our position, we have pursued this discussion further with both Aufheben and TPTG. In the case of Aufheben we stand by our original assessment, but we now recognize that our assessment of TPTG’s position was inaccurate.
Rather than an inquiry to investigate the behavior of a particular person, TPTG’s proposal was directed at police methods in general, and the thinking behind it, including the use of crowd psychology. That is indeed a worthwhile research-project, and while it has so far yielded little in the way of concrete results, we have written to TPTG to offer our support and participation.
Internationalist Perspective
No one is Waiting For My Posts…
Or are they? I really don’t know.
When I published Red & Black Notes, I had a pretty good idea of who read the thing. I posted copies, and I sold copies directly. Sure, I sold a few in bookstores, but I’d venture that I met or mailed to 90% of those who ever read the thing.
A blog is different. Unless someone subscribes to the blog or posts a comment, I have no idea who reads the thing. It’s quite unnerving at times.
I find too, the pace is very different. With R&BN, although the publication schedule changed over the years, it was fairly regular. The blog tends to go in fits and starts: some months, I publish 3-4 pieces a week, but it’s been two weeks since the last post, and I could offer all sorts of reasons. But I won’t.
Instead, I go on.
Yesterday’s New York Times provided a good insight into the fucked-up world we live in. no, on, I’m not referring to coverage about the seemingly endless assault on African-Americans by US cops (Ferguson and Staten Island most recently) or even the decapitation beheading fetish some self-styled Islamic radicals are displaying.
No, no. If you pick up the style magazine from yesterday, you’ll see a product comparison with Jenna Lyons of J Crew and Courtney Love. Among the objects they discuss are a Four and Sons a canine themed literary magazine (at a modest $20 an issue), $1,500 Dior shoes, and a Kara Walker jug with an Aunt Jemimah-ish caricature, and in Courtney’s words: “It’s beautifully rendered, but I think for white people to own it would be kind of tacky.” Uh, huh.
Skip over to the book section and you can see what Malala Yousafzai is reading. Among her favourites, “The Alchemist,” “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” “The Kite Runner,” “A Brief History of Time,” and “The Breadwinner.”
She makes no mention of those white Beats $600 headphones with plaster pillow Jenna and Courtney looked at though.
Secrets of the Style Section
In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll mention I own the same tie as Kevin Sussums on the front page of the New York Times style section No tattoos though.
After posting this morning’s comment about the magazine, I glanced through the style section: OK, I like the advice column: It’s fun to see what people think they can get away with, and the marriages section: “Oh look, we love each other so much our heads are stuck together.” I always find it odd that people usually look a lot like their partner. But I digress.
For some reason today I was reminded of a piece that appeared in the Gawker about the style section profiled the people behind the New Inquiry. Here’;s the salient part:
See, the secret of the Style section is that it’s intended for two audiences. The first audience is its “official,” explicit audience: people who see nothing problematic with being told by The New York Times what’s cool, and think of the Style section is a straight-ahead, unironic record of hip trends and cool people. This is the audience that most people imagine when they okay a Style section profile.
But there is the second audience. A secret audience. This audience, of which you are a member, is both mesmerized and repelled by the Style section. This audience reads the Style section, week after week, and thinks “what the fuck is wrong with rich people?” This audience regards the Style section as a collection of dispatches from a different universe; a universe where some of the most horrible and insufferable people on the planet are treated as visionaries and geniuses. A rich universe.
Major Threat?
I’m sure some will be outraged by the cover of this week’s New York Times magazine which borrows its inspiration from DC’s 80’s hardcore scene and in particular Minor Threat for the story on Rand Paul and libertarianism.
It’s not 2005 Nike rip; rather it uses a clever pun along with the look of those D.I.Y. fliers which were so abundant then (even the circle “A” is a nice touch).
And the article is interesting too, to see the efforts to reconcile libertarian ideas of freedom while allowing for the state to regulate and enforce those same libertarian views.
It’s a funny thing how the question of the state looms in different political philosophies. The “right” is considered the party of small government, while the “left” is the party of big government. Yet, rightist parties seem to love the state in thier own ways (It’s significant that right-wing politicians who decry government subsidies are the largest recipients). Similarly, I did not become a socialist, a communist, or whatever label you choose to promote the growth of government control over lives. Socialism if it is anything is exerting control over life.
In the article, libertarian activist Nick Gillispie, brings a variety of different flavoured pop tart boxes to a meeting to prove perhaps – tongue in cheek that “individualism was flourishing and choice was abundant. ” Is freedom only the opportunity to choose between twenty version of the same type of toothpaste at the drug store? What was it Dauve said, that for those who think the concentration camps were hell, heaven is the supermarket?
When I was in the first year of university, I read, for a course, Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom. In the introduction, Friedman recounts a debate in the sixties where his opponent painted him as a reactionary. Friedman pointed out that as a libertarian, he opposed the draft in peacetime as an example of unjustified government activity. It won him the debate. It seems striking though that Friedman’s introduction was written in 1982 several years after his followers in the Chicago school had braintrusted several extremely authoritarian regimes in South America who engaged in quite a few “unjustified government” activities.
And that’s it, isn’t it? It seems for some, the line is “The state has no business in society except to enforce my views on social issues, and of course to maintain my profit margins” . Have a read of the article to see a libertarian defence of traditional marriage.
And then go and listen to Minor Threat.
Bryan Lee O’ Malley: Seconds
Bryan Lee O’Malley is the creator of the six-volume Scott Pilgrim series. If you haven’t read it, well, it’s a pretty amazing manga-like graphic novel about the titular hero who must defeat Ramona Flowers legion (OK, not exactly an entire legion) of evil Exes in order to date her. Oh, and it’s set in Toronto
But that ended in 2010, the same year that a really enjoyable film version was released. Sooo….what do you do next?
The answer is Seconds. It’s the story of Katie, the chef at a successful restaurant, but who dreams of owning her own restaurant. In the course of the beautifully drawn and wonderfully funny story, Katie comes across several spirits, magic mushrooms (no, no…), time travel and learns to deal with her own success and failure. It’s a great story.
A couple of a nights ago, the Beguiling sponsored a book launch with O’Malley at the Bloor Cinema. There was a reading, an on-stage discussion and a Q and A session, followed by a signing. (Yeah, yeah, got my book signed). I always like those kind of creator centred events because the discussion tends to be quite free-ranging and you pick up little bits of trivia along the way (O’Malley got the idea for Seconds after the publication of the first Scott Pilgrim book while he was working at College street restaurant Kalendar (No, Seconds is not based on it)
Go read now.
